ReDigitise
by Shadowfaller
Summary: Season Crossover. Book one of Digital Revolution. Half human, half fae Dimension Jumper, Blake Steorra, following Ophanimon's request and a rift in time, he arrives with two digimon in a large forest, where he meets three soccer loving google heads. But he's not the only 'off worlder' as a clocked woman seems to be following Tai. Time Fissues and Murder afoot. Takuya/Kari pairing.
1. Enter Black Star

**Prologue: Enter the Black Star**

Digimon; Digital Monsters, natives of the digital plain. Are they just rouge programs that are beyond the control of humans? Or are they something more then data? Can data really be alive or just doomed to mimic life? To some, their existence is seen as a threat to humanity. To many, they are little more then a game. To to few, they know the truth, and with it, shoulder a burden… the digi-destine, children who work with digimon to defend the digital plain and the earth it's existence was born from.

Before the time of the Sovereign, the crests and the eight children who carried them, there were the Celestial Digimon who watched over the ten regions of the Digital World, and held the ten sprits of the legendary warriors. Ophanimon, Seraphimon and Cherubimon. For many years, the Digital World prospered under their rule until Lucemon corrupted Cherubimon, and strikes down Seraphimon, and captured Ophanimon. In her deperation, Ophanitmon reached out to the children of our counter world, Earth. Five children were chosen by the Sprits of Flame, Light, Ice, Wind and Thunder, and one given the corrupted spirt of Darkness to be freed and purified. Together, the six children with their sprit partners fought against the servants of Lucemon. When the digital world and it's three moons were reduced to nothing, even one of the children, the bearer of true darkness sacrificed himself to protect the remaining five, and surrendered the sprits to his brother.

All seemed lost, but in darkest of times, hope shines at his brightest.

The children merged into Susanoomon to destroy Lucemon in his Shadow Lord Mode before he made it to Earth and released the data he hoarded to rebuild the digital world, and the children returned home, leaving the digital world. We thought they would never return. Until Shamanmon had a vision, of a red sea of chaos, humans and digimon charging against each other with children, legendary warriors and digimon standing between them. He recognised Ophanimon standing beside the warrior of flame, and a young girl, the chosen child of light. Upon hearing Shamanmon's vision, Ophanimon knew what the vision meant. But at the time, the remaining six demon lords were retaliating against Lucemon's distraction.

A young human boy arrived in the digital world, but not from the same human world as the children. Another universe that's parallel to the human's. One without a digital world and where the technology is more advanced and dangerous then the arcane. Where magic and science exists side by side. The Black Star, both a young boy and an old man, with a zeal of youth and experience of ages. A scholar, a fighter, a saint, a sinner. A chosen child without a partner.

The Trailmon took him from his deep cover operations in the city of New York. He and his partner, Miranda Jane, was looking for a weapon that came from another world, made by creatures who kills, destroys and butchers anything that isn't them…

Blake Steorra, an Australian born half human teenager of the Terran Commonwealth quickly read and reread the message on his subspace enabled phone.

"I have a mission for you my Champion. You will find a train waiting on the Courtlandt station platform. It will take you to the residence of your contact. I trust you know the responsibilities of your position child. She requires someone of a particular physical age and certain skill set." The message read. It didn't mention who the contact was or what she wanted. He didn't expect it either, but he'd know when he'd meet her. He already had a feeling that the contact was a woman.

Blake looked around the train again. he had seen a number of different designs during his lifetime. But this train car was possibly the most radical. Benches were bolted against the wall, windows were round and the doors bared writing that Blake didn't recognise. He was more concerned about the structure of the data everything seemed to be made of, like someone constructed a world where data is energy and matter, and placed it in it's own pocket dimension.

He noticed the train rolling into a terminal. Somewhere bright and colourful by the looks of it.

"End of the line kid." He heard the train say. Train? "Better not keep the Lady Ophanimon waiting. She might be a sweet gold gal, but best not to keep her waiting."

"Uh. Right." Blake said, getting up, taking his bag and walking off the train. The platform looked more like a field of white flowers, a castle standing against a perpetual sunset, with whites, greens and purples. It looked like a fairy tale. The castle was still a fair walk away. His first instinct was to look though the contents of his bag to look for his hover board, the trusty jet sled that proved a stalwart companion over the years but something told him he had time. He always had time.

Time would always be on his side.

"Good luck kid." Was all the train said before departing.

"Thanks. I think." Blake muttered, straitening up the collar of his duster, checking the inside pockets for weapons, electronics, crystals and wallet, even straitened up the seven pointed star badge on the lapel and the ankh necklace, both symbols of his position as a champion and as an agent. He began walking, contemplating the scene around him… the quite, the bueaty… the screaming yellow rabbit wearing red pants bering chased by a white panda wearing a pink haramaki with a green book in hand… hold up.

"I told you not to touch it you nincompoop!" The white one yelled.

"You asked me to bring it to you." The rabbit protested hiding behind Blake.

"That was three days ago!" Both went started running around Blake in an attempt to keep away from the attacker, or to attack. "You knew this was an important project for me!"

"I didn't mean to pull out the page. I just wanted something to draw on."

"Why does Lady Ophanimon torture me with you!?"

"Excuse me." Blake caught their attention. They were surprised to find a human standing in the middle of the Sunlight Field. "If you're not too busy using me as a maypole, could you help me with something."

"Bokomon. Why is a human here?" The rabbit asked his attacker.

"I don't believe it. It can't be today. I've only just finished the book of their last adventure. But…" The white one muttered then turned more cheerful. "Sorry. I'm Bokomon keeper of Ophanimon's Library of Knowledge. And this is Neemon." He introduced himself and the rabbit. "I'm guessing your our escort."

"Escort?" Blake asked.

"Apologies. I thought you were already informed of your duties." Bokomon mentioned. "Perhaps Lady Ophanimon would explain it better. Follow us please."

"Are we going to see the humans again Bokomon?" Neemon asked.

"Yes Neemon. I might get a chance to write an afterward. I wonder what they're up to now."

* * *

Yutaka Himi couldn't understand what was happening. The sixteen year old watched his younger sibling from behind a nearby tree. Tommy had grown a lot more independent overnight, and over the past year, he had shown it. Not to mention that he started hanging out with kids older then him, and they weren't even from his school. The one he was with now, Takuya, was from Jiyugaoka, and was responsible for getting Tommy interested in soccer. He followed them from the station in West Shinjuku where Tommy was waiting. Last week he would meet Takuya at his home field, but this time, he was riding the train with Takuya to the other team's home field.

There were four others, J.P. got him interested in boxing and magic tricks, Zoe passed along some Italian, Koji introduced him to music, and Koichi gave him his old baseball kit. But out of all five of them, Takuya seemed to have a greater influence over the orange hat wearing preteen boy.

Their parents might not see something wrong, but something about those teenagers were very wrong.

"What are those guys getting you into?" Yutaka asked Tommy, knowing the question was unheard given that he was on the other side of the train car.

"Stalking us again Yutaka?" Came a frustrated female voice. Yutaka froze, not expecting the blonde haired, half Italian Zoe Orimoto to be behind him, another of the teenagers who Tommy hung out with. Behind her was J.P, a formally heavyset brown haired boy who had began to shoot up in height and had the sense to stand well back from the soon to begin verbal fight.

"Great. You two. I knew Takuya would be on board. Where's the Yin Yang duo." Yutaka spat. J.P chuckled, no one could tell the two apart if Koji lost his bandana and tail, grow Koichi's hair out, you couldn't tell the twins apart. Yutaka couldn't from the distance, he had been keeping.

"Ticket please sir." Came a deep voice. Yutaka froze. In trying to get on the train to follow his brother, he didn't by a ticket. "You do know it's against the law to board a train without a valid ticked Himi." Wait.

"Just what are you playing at Koichi?" Yutaka turned to see the bandana wearing twin instead.

"Close." J.P. smiled. "I'd would be insulted if it was anyone else."

"Because he is good looking and a sharp dresser." Zoe cooed.

"I'll tell him you two said hi." Koji said. "Aren't you two heading to Odabia?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Takuya and Tommy just disem… Hey!" A young foreign woman with brown hair, wearing a blue and yellow hoodie and a pair of brown jeans ran into him. She began yelling loudly at Yukata in english.

"I'm sorry ma'am. Can you slow down? Or speak Japanese please?" Yukata asked. She just kept yelling and shoved Yutaka into the crowd before running off.

"That was off." JP noted as he and Zoe stepped off the train just as the doors closed. Yukata managed get out of the pile he was pushed into, only to fail to get to the doors in time to stop them.

"You could have stop them from closing!" Yutaka yelled at Koji, the only one of the five teenagers aboard.

"What's the big deal?" Koji asked. "Just double back, unless your following Tommy again." He didn't have time to think about it further when his stop came up, Tamachi station.

He disembarked the train and walked towards the apartment building his mom and brother inhabited. It was always been him going to see his mom. But Koji was a little hesitant to tell his dad that he found his brother, and Koichi didn't want to meet his father. Not until he could forgive him for leaving them. And Tomoko Kimura has twelve years to catch up on.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Kimura Residance, Koichi had his laptop open to an IM conversation, between himself and a friend that recently moved to Odabia. It was only across the Rainbow Bridge, sure, but Odabia had it's own school district, meaning he wouldn't be seeing much of his friend. It was about a year ago he became the warrior of darkness, taking on Duskmon's form, then purifying the sprits into Lowermon. After he got out of the hospital a few weeks later, introduced Koji to his mom, and started going back to school, he became aware of T.K's hatred for all things relating to darkness.

He decided before then to keep his time in the digital world to himself, his brother, and his friends, but guilt swelled on Koichi's shoulders more. He didn't know why he hated darkness so much.

"So, how did the big move go?" Koichi typed and hit enter.

"Not bad. New school. New apartment. But the same old lumpy oatmeal." T.K sent back. "I met two of my school mates already. Yolei who organises the school's computer club, and Cody who's a student in Kendo." He added.

"Reminds me of my brother." Koichi typed and sent without thinking.

"I thought you were an only child?" T.K sent back. Koichi panicked for a moment, trying to think of how to explain it, when another IM appeared on the screen. "Explain to me later. Matt just came off stage. I'll talk to you later."

Koichi heard a knock at the door, and his mother answer. "Koji."

"Hey mom."

Koichi typed a reply. "And speaking of the estranged sibling, he arrives. Talk to you later." The door to the living room slid back, reviling the warrior of light. Koichi closed the laptop and set it aside. "So?"

"Movie and Pizza?" Koji asked. "My treat."

"She said she needed to go into work. Figured I'll call dad, stay tonight and get Takuya to cover if they ask."

"And school?"

Koji shrugged. "I'll get there on time."

"Fine. But you'll help me make breakfast in bed for mom."

"Just along as your up early. You know how bad a cook I am." Koji half joked. He was serious about about the fact he couldn't cook, mostly because he hasn't gained anymore experience cooking despite Zoe giving him a few pointers. He is sure of one thing, Takuya is still just as bad as him. Worse maybe.

"Actuarially." Koichi said suddenly. "There is something." He produced a printout of a photo that Koji found eye opening. At first, he thought it was two blurs, but became obvious that it was two creatures fighting each other on a a highway, one atop the other. "I looked them up. One's Lynxmon. The other's Renamon. Someone named the Digimon Queen been posting these photos to a blog."

Koji couldn't believe it. A year after they went to the digital world and all of a sudden, there's digimon in the real world. While they didn't have their sprit partners, they couldn't let this go un-investigated.

* * *

The inside of the castle was just as imposing as the outside. For one thing, he appreciated Bokomon's ability as a librarian. The entrance hall was a massive library, seemingly ordered in such a matriculates manner. The two rookie digimon lead him upstairs and into what looked like a throne room. Standing where the throne should be was a woman, dressed in green armour, set of gold wings stood from her back and holding a shield in her hand. A matching spear lied

"Apologies Champion, but time is sparse and at this moment, Laylamon is on her way. Seraphimon and Cherubimon were attacked by Daemon and Beelzemon, and they destroyed each other in the battles. My servants have sealed away the first three attackers when they began attacking several villages."

"And now Laylamon is coming after you." Blake concluded.

"No. She wants to prevent the release of the Harmonious ones. It is already too late. The warriors have burnt away their physical forms and Neferitimon is already on her way to their resting place. All Laylamon will find is her demise."

"Along with yours."

"Do not concern yourself with my wellbeing child. I will be reconfigured upon death and find my way back to you." She handed Blake a black and gold device. "Take this Digi-vice. Unlike the others, any partnered digimon will be connected if their partner human is unwilling, or unable to fulfil their duties as digi-destine. I must ask you now, do you understand the reason why I chose you for this position?"

Blake nodded knowing what comes next.

"In the box behind me, you will find the remaining six sprits of the Legendary Warriors. This is my request. Take them to their human partners along with Bokomon and Neemon. But warn them if they take on the sprits, they will become one with them, with no way to undo the process."

"What do you mean become one?"

"I mean, merge completely, bind their fractal codes to their DNA, becoming in essence, half digimon. If they accept they accept the responsibility again, along with the burden. If they cannot…"

There was a loud bang, followed by a series of loud, echoing footsteps. "Little sister."

"Go. Now." She whispered before taking her spear and walking into the main chamber. Blake walked up to the box, picked it up and gently put it inside his bag.

"There's a secret passage though that book shelf." Bokomon informed him, leading him and Neemon to the back of the room. "I'm not sure where or when it leads."

"Where or when?"

"We call it a time tunnel." He pointed out. "All I know is that the tunnel leads three hundred years into the future of the digital world and it was caused by our world and their world syncing up sometime in the future." Bokomon explained. "A few of them have been piping up over Sunlight Fields. Some rookie digimon fell in, and a few of our friends went after them. Even Swanmon went after them. Ophanimon had to assign a new caretaker for Primary village."

They walked up to a a shimmering ball of purple light. Blake immediately became concerned.

"That shouldn't be here." Blake said afraid. "Not in this time or place."

* * *

"Run for your lives! It's the evil digimon emperor!"

The moment they heard, the digimon ran far as they could, as fast as they could. No one knew where he came from, why he enslaves digimon, or where he got his black digi-vice from, all they knew it, they had to get away from those black rings.

Ahead of them, A Gatomon with a whistle around her neck ran though the forest, all the long knowing she was singled out by a black ring. She couldn't out run it, so she focused her power, using her tail ring, she whacked the ring out of the sky. It fell out of the air and landed on the ground. Harmless.

"That was close." Gatomon mentioned, unknown to her was a Unimon was behind her, until she heard a noise. She turned just in time to see him power a horn blaster attack. She didn't have time to get out of the way. The sphere of white energy blasted her into a tree. Taking advantage of her dazed state, the Unimon galloped up and prepared to stop her.

Her eyes opened, seeing the impending attack, the cat digimon rolled out of the way with only a moment to spare, the Unimon only managing to step on the cat's tail ring. Gatoman ran, avoiding another horn blaster attack.

Deeper in, an orange dinosaur was knocked forward by a stray attack.

"Agumon!" Called another reptile wearing a blue pelt making him look like a wolf. He tumbled to a stop next to his friend. "We need to warn the others." He huffed tired.

"Tai! Help! Tai!"

Further in the clearing, the reptile's cry's for help were being answered…

* * *

"But it's true. You gotta believe me. Guys, I'm not kidding. Digimon are real." Takato tried to convince his friends, Kenta and Kazu. Kenta Kiagawa is a shy, glasses wearing boy who was hopeless at the digimon card game, resulting in Takato or Kazu winning . Kazu Shinoda, the class clown with the winning streak among them. The trio sat inside the ceramic dinosaur in Shinjuku park as the brunette went on about his dream last night until Kazu covered his friend's mouth.

"And then your eyes opened, and you were back in bed like nothing had ever happened." Kazu finished for his friend, now annoyed at the story. It was like Katsuharu and Teppei all over again.

"You saw them fighting on the bed?" Kenta asked obvious to the statement.

Takato struggled with Kazu's hand, trying to get it off with a muffled "No!" He managed to get it off. "Listen. This was not a dream! I'm not making it up!" He then muttered how his hands were numb from the rain. Kazu started laughing.

"Hey. Maybe you made your own cold puddle." Kazu suggested.

"What!?"

"That's some dream" Kenta added, joining in the chuckling.

"More like a bed wetting nightmare!" Kazu contuined, Both boys where laughing hard and Takato's face had reddened significantly before growing frustrated.

"I did not wet the bed!" Takato yelled over the chime of the clock.

"Maybe he froze his hands wiping his baby tears!" Kenta taunted.

"Hey!"

"Poor mr. sleepy head. Made his own water bed!" Kazu yelled climbing out of the dinosaur and running across the park

"Can't stay dry when your sleepy baby cries!" Kenta yelled following Kazu.

"I didn't wet anything!" Takato yelled after them. He leaned back against the dinosaur wall, leaving what they yelled back unheard. "It was real. I saw them. And her…" He thought back to his dream when that girl and Renamon fought Lynxmon. "What a tamer." A thought crossed his mind. He reached out to box he kept his digimon card in, along with a digi-vice, A hand held, phone shaped device with an inferred scanner, a card reader and an short antenna, with a crimson body and a set of summer yellow grips. He picked the device out, noticing that her didi-vice was different from his.

He did notice something else. The egg had hatched.

"Aw. I missed it." He moaned. "Good thing I don't have real pets. I can't even keep track of a digital one. But where could he be. I've got to find him…"

He heard a buzzing noise coming from his bag. He picked out a smartphone, with a fresh message on the touch screen reading "Come to the digital world. The digimon need our help. Are you ready to begin?"

Without thinking, Takato pushed yes.

"Takato Matsuki." A voice called out. "It is time to decide your future Takato."

The ten year old was immediately confused. "What? My future?" He shook his head. "It is just a game. Isn't it."

"You may think of it as a game if you'd wish, but understand the impactions of what action, and inaction can do. As long as you understand that, then all that maters is that you have fun."

"Okay. How do I play?"

"Go to the abandoned shied on the east side of Shinjuku park. Come alone and bring a deck of cards. Be prepared to give up the cards Digi-metals of Courage, Knowledge and Love."

Takato shrugged, knowing he had duplicates of those cards as Kenta gave them to him trying to find the golden digi-metal. With little more left, Takato packed his cards up, slipped them in his bag and pulled out a pair of googles he couldn't risk his mom throwing out. He clipped the digi-vice to his backpack strap, and put the googles over his head, ready for action.

He climbed out of the dinosaur and ran off toward the abandoned shied.

* * *

Not far from the park, sitting under the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, a large computer complex. Two operators sat in chairs, held up by a pair of hydraulic arms, watched the output of the computer's task to monitor the world's communications network, a task made harder now thanks to the wide spread introduction of personal computing and mobile smart devices.

"I'm picking up an abnormal germination energy patten." One of the operators, a red haired young woman annouched.

"Is it another wild one?" Asked a man at a terminal below, flicking a zippo lighter open and close.

"I can't tell yet. But the levels are increasing at an experiential rate. I've never seen anything like it." The operator returned, fingers dancing over squares of random colours.

"Send a tracer."

"I'm trying, but the tracer is having trouble locking."

* * *

"Pretty lights." Neemon exclaimed.

"Yes. I suppose it is pretty." Blake agreed with the dim rabbit. "Just remember the golden rule of space travel. The more beautiful it is, the more likely it's going to kill you."

"How should we proceed?" Bokomon asked picking up a number of books and the case. There was a loud explosion that shock the entire building.

"Either stay here and face an almost curtain demise, or take hour chance though a barely stable rift in reality." Blake answered. "I'm going to with option B. Though, word of warning. I have no idea where we're going to end up."

"If we are to find Takuya and the hosts of the Legendary Warriors, then we have to take the risk. Have faith the Lady Ophanimon will find us on the other side." Bokomon stated. "And faith that destiny will lead us to them in the celestial digimon's absence."

Blake took the case from Bokomon and stared into the sphere of purple light. Neemon reached out to touch it only to vanish in a flash of light.

"I guess he's ready to go." Blake said as he jumped into sphere yelling "Bonzi!" Bokomon followed with caution. He disappeared in a flash of purple light then the sphere pulsed and collapsed on itself, leaving the three time travellers with no way back.

* * *

In a dim computer room, a figure wearing a white hooded robe stepped out of thin air and into the room. She looked around the classroom, remembering when she was first here, and knowing what she needed to do next. Third computer from the right, she produced a device and aimed the screen at the computer's wide screen monitor.

"Digi-port open." She hissed as a program installed on the computer and opened. She heard someone coming and hid the program.

"Yeah Cody. Just let me check something on the computer." A lavender haired girl called out as the woman stepped forward and vanished, leaving no trace she was ever there. The girl opened the door, walked up to the computer that was still on and opened an internet browser window.

* * *

Japan Fact - Railway: Public transport in Japan is one of the most efficient and well developed on Earth. With the railway network, this is due in part to the number of railway companies that compete in passenger transportation markets. The Japanese rail industry's claim to fame is punctuality setting a high standard in the eyes of the Japanese public, and apparently, the digital world.

Terran Fact - It's beginnings: The Terran Commonwealth is an intergalactic nation, comprised of a number of species, planets and star systems, with Earth at it's centre. The commonwealth's history is argued by historians to have began in 1971 when a start ship crashed into the north of France. Others argued that it began in 2002 when the United Nations disbanded. The symbol of the commonwealth is the seven point star.


	2. Takuya's Flames of Courage

**Chapter one: Tai's Flames of Courage**

Takeru Takaishi locked his tablet with a look of confusion on his face. Since when did Koichi have an older brother? He let out a sigh, stood up and walked to the window that looked out into an open park outside the Odaiba Consent Hall where his brother's band was playing. They just finished their encore and the four musicians started small talking.

All but one. Matt walked up to his brother and asked him what he thought of the consort from the sidelines. He didn't think it was wise to put his brother in the middle of a crowd of screaming fans. They heard a girl screaming as she ran up to the blonde haired siblings, a marron haired girl wearing a white shirt with a number of signatures on it. Immediately, she asked Matt for an autograph and handed him the marker.

"Sure." Matt complied with a bored tone in his voice. The girl turned and Matt began writing. "What's your name?"

"Just make it out to Jun Motomiya." The girl said. "I get all the cute boys to sign it. You may not know it, but I haven't washed this shirt in two years."

"There's not a lot of room." Matt commented.

"I know. I think all boys are cute." Jun replied just as Matt and TK's phones went off. Each had a message.

"Come to the digital world. The digimon need our help. Are you ready to begin?" Both messages read.

"Some sort of danger in the digital world." Matt concluded. "I hope Gabumon is okay." He handed the marker back to Jun and pushed yes.

"Yamato Ishida. It is time Matt." A voice called out from his phone. "Go to the computer lab at Odabia Junior High. Await further instructions there."

Matt turned to his brother who was looking at his phone with a confused look on his face. They ran off leaving a very confused Jun in their wake.

* * *

"It's really not a problem Tai. I need to take some photos for the school newsletter anyway." Kari assured her brother, the bushily haired high school student and assistant coach for the local junior high soccer team. Hikari Kamiya followed her older brother towards her school of Odabia Junior High. She had grown a little since her trip to the digital world. But she still hoped that she would see the digital world, and Gatomon.

Kari Kamiya didn't know it yet but today would the day. She arrived with her older brother Tai. She wanted to show support for her brother whom had taken an assistant coach internship at his old elementary school. The coach had to take the weekend off so Tai was solo on this game and Kari was more then happy to help with the equipment. He took his soccer very seriously and got competitive. She hoped it wouldn't be the case here, and thankfully, her fears were unfounded so far. But he should stop worrying about her being her after the last time she came with him to a soccer game.

During half time, she took a few photos for the school newsletter. She had a good one of Davis lined up until… someone ruined her shot by bumping in to her.

"Ow. Sorry. Didn't see you there." Someone told her while helping her up to her feet. "Are you okay?"

She got a look at the guy who bumped into her. He was tall, brown hair, brown eyes and a year or two older then her. He wore a teal hat and a pair of squarish googles, the visiting teams soccer kit, a blue and white shirt, and blue shorts. He had that dorky smile that she could almost mistake for her brother's. She was almost at a loss for words until she found the ability to reply.

"Yeah. I'm fine." She said feeling the blood rush to her face.

"Good to hear." The boy said back.

"Hey! Takuya!" She heard someone from the visiting team call out.

"Coming Kazuko!" Takaya called back. It was then she noticed the ice pack in his hand. She remembered briefly that one of the players from the visiting team had spanned his ankle. "I need to…" He pointed to the bag. She nodded but found herself following. "I'm Takuya by the way."

"Kari Kamiya." She returned.

"Kamiya? You're brother's the coach right."

"Yep." She turned to her bushy haired brother, watching him give an encouraging speech.

"Something tells me he's given that speech before." Takuya noted as he gave one of the boys, obviously the one with the sprained ankle since he was lying across the bench with one raised over the other. He healed the bag of ice on the sprain. They heard the ref's whistle, and both teams went back to the field. Save the boy with the sprained ankle. Kari watched from the sidelines, suddenly getting the feeling that something was wrong with the world.

She was right when she heard something attached to Tai's belt start beeping. And in a spit second, he was gone.

"Tai?"

* * *

"Agumon! Gabumon!" Tai ignored the headache as a mixture of joy and fear overcame him. Agumon, his partner, more then that, his adopted little brother. He found him on lying on the ground, not injured, just tired, and very afraid.

"Tai!" Gabumon was overjoyed to see Tai, like an old friend. If he was here, Matt couldn't be far behind.

He helped the both reptiles to their feet. "You've got to digivolve."

"That's why we need your help Tai." Agumon explained as the bushy haired teen fished out his digi-vice. It beeped over and over but it wouldn't respond.

"We can't digivolve." Gabumon clarified.

"Did you two forget how?" It's like riding a bike." Tai demanded, hearing a familiar sound. "Run!"

* * *

"Ow." Neemon moaned, face half berried in the dirt. A purple light filled the clearing and Blake stumbled into the clearing, ungracefully but feet still on the ground, and standing upright. Bokomon followed, tumbling into Neemon, books flying into the ground. "Ow." Neemon moaned again.

"You'll get used to it." Blake dismissed, looking around the clearing, finding a patch of scorched earth. That made him wonder what went on before he arrived.

"Hey!" Neemon called out, holding up a gold ring.

"Neemon. Where did you find that?" Bokomon asked.

"In my mouth."

"How unsanitary." Bokomon noticed something about the ring. "Wait a minute. That's a tail ring belonging to a Gatomon." To clarify, Bokomon open one of his books and showed Blake a drawing of a strange looking cat, and a close up of it's tail ring.

"So a Gatomon would be missing it?" Blake asked, pocketing the ring in his duster.

"Very likely." Bokomon slipped the book into his hamaki.

"I found another shiny!" Neemon yelled, picking up a black ring, decorated with digi-code.

"Hello. What in the seven systems of the commonwealth do we have here?" Blake asked taking the ring from Neemon.

"I've never seen anything like it." Bokomon told him. "But I don't like it one bit." He opened one of the books trying to get an idea what it is.

Blake examined the dead ring like a mutant rose, make more beautiful by it's imperfections. He produced a smartphone from his pocket, a see though touch screen device with an apple logo on the back. The device lit up and quickly, the ring flared into life again. Blake read the details on the device, then smiled when the electromagnetic emulator picked up a frequency.

The first thing he heard when he opened it was chuckling. "It's no use." Blake heard a voice coming though the device. Bokomon produced a pencil from his hamaki and started writing on a scrap piece of paper. "As long as I have the black digi-vice, there's no way they can digivolve."

"They come in black? That'll appeal to the goth subculture. They do love their things in black those guys." Blake told Neemon.

"Yay!" The rabbit cheered.

"Wha.. What?"

"But knowing you, I'd say, you wear lots of black and purples. Oh gold shoulder pads! Seriously. It's so hard to find a bad guy that's not stereotypical. And these things." He shock the ring. "Don't get me started. Is it so much to ask for a little originality."

"Who is this?" The voice demanded. Instead of answering, Blake just hung up, only to find the voice was coming from else where. "Who do you think you are sneaking into the digital world?!"

With a board expression on his face, Blake turned towards the voice. "Look kid. I don't have…" He stopped and gave the hologram a good once over. It was an image of a eleven year old boy with blue spiky hair, thick frame sunglasses, and a cape decorated with yellow shoulder pads. An obvious hologram. "See. Invasion of the eighties has-beens. So what is it to ya mate? If your customs, I'd be quite happy to show you my…"

"Ordinary people aren't allowed in the digital world. Only the digi-destine are."

"Oh. Okay. I must have missed the sign." He turned to Neemon. "Why didn't you point it out? I could have blatantly ignored it."

"There was a sign?" Neemon question.

"Why are you telling me this now?" Blake turned back to the hologram. "Sorry. You can list me as blatantly ignoring any and all keep out signs that are in or around this area. Now if you don't mind, I need to commit an act of breaking and entering to go with my act of trespassing. And if time permits, some charges of disturbing the pe…"

"What a minute!" Bokomon interrupted. "Does he mean Takuya and the others?"

"That's physically impossible." The hologram noted.

"I don't know. A very high bar as has been set for impossible, physical or otherwise." Blake muttered smiling. "You've got time rifts opening up, if you haven't noticed. No wonder we missed the sign."

"Why's that?" Bokomon asked.

"It's simple. Based on the laws of physics, I have determined that only perfect human beings can be digi-destine. And of cause, I am the only perfect human being." The hologram boosted. "You are an intruder in a place where you don't belong. Your are ordered to evacuated the premies without further notice."

"Sorry? You say something?" Blake pointed to his ear. "I can't hear you over that ego of yours. But doesn't do anything for my sense of smell." He went on, sniffing the air. "If Glenn was here, he'd be howling mad over it by now. Lycans, you know." He said to Neemon.

"Why does everyone question my authority? Must it always turn into a great big production? Get him Vegimon!" The hologram vanished and a large red vegetable rushed him. All three leapt out of the way and the vegetable turned to Neemon.

"I don't even want to eat my vegetables!" He yelled as twin vines went after him.

"Fortunately…" Blake started as his katana fell from his sleeve, the blade extended from it's handle until a yard of curved steal was available. "I always did." He ran at the Red Vegimon, sword glowing a toxic green.

* * *

Click.

Kari took the final photo. The two team captions shaking hands. The home team had lost by two goals but both sides had fun none the less. However, Kari was more focused on Takuya. Every time she would sneak a glance in his direction, he would notice and she would look away with a blush on her face.

Takuya on the other hand congratulated his team mates, and the other team for a great game. He then his thoughts drifted back twelve months, when he came back from the digital world. Ever since then, he's been spending more time with his brother, not to mention making more time to hang with his friends, J.P, Koji and Koichi, Zoe and Tommy. Though Tommy was more difficult since his brother, Yukata, became suspicious of why he's former tormenters became his friends, how he suddenly matured overnight and why he started hanging with Takuya and the other Legendary Warriors. So far it was harmless. Shopping trips lead by Zoe, soccer games with Takuya's dad, arcade one on ones, just normal teenage stuff. Then there was meeting JP at the boxing gym he joined after the digital world, Tommy had to avoid that like the plague or risk giving his brother the wrong idea.

Speaking of, Tommy ran up to the warrior of flame. "You were amazing. That head shot was awesome Takuya."

"Thanks Tommy. Means a lot coming from you." He saw Kari glance in his direction for the fifth time today. "Tommy. Why don't you wait for me for a moment. We can go catch up with Zoe and JP later." He called out to Kari as Tommy ran off. "Hey!"

Kari smiled before turning to Davis for a moment. "I'm sure he'll be back soon." She reassured Davis. "Could you get the equipment. I still have the key to the equipment shed."

"Sure." Davis said, like a love sick puppy, eager to do anything to please Kari. There wasn't much to grab. Just the ball and a few things the coach and ref use in the game. When he ran back towards Kari, he saw something that nearly ripped his heart in two.

Kari was talking to the Kanbara guy. The caption of the other team. Not just talking, laughing.

"Hey buddy!" Davis called out confronting the other guy.

"First of all, my name isn't buddy. It's Takuya. Second, what's gotten you railed up?" A sudden look of realisation appeared on his face. "I get it, your jealous."

Kari watched scene unfold as she got a message on her phone. "Come to the digital world. The digimon need our help. Are you ready to begin? Yes. No."

"Weird." Kari thought as Davis and Takuya looked over her shoulder. Davis had the same look of confusion but Takuya nearly feel backwards in shock. Panic overtook him while at the same time, a wave of anticipation ran over him. The idea of seeing the digital world again, welding the power of Agunimon, warrior of Flame. He cursed to himself for not bring his phone with him, instead, leaving it with his street clothes in his duffle

Kari looked at the sender. It was from Tai.

* * *

"Chilly Pepper Pummel!" Blake didn't need to block this one, just slice the peppers in mid air by spinning the blade in his hand.

"You call that spice." He raised the combat field to his head and rushed at the digital weed. He was knocked back into the bushes where he dashed off. "Well. That was dull." Blake moaned, sword folded up and slipped into his sleeve. He went over to pick up the black ring and place it in his backpack. As he did, Bokomon heard a roar, belonging to a Snimon…

"I may have something to remedy that.." Bokomon pointed out, a giant praying mantis with sickles for hands. "Look out!"

All three dived out of the way as an energy blast hit the ground. "What is that?" Blake called out, weapon drawn, holographic targeting locked on the attacking digimon.

"Snimon; Vaccine attribute champion digimon." Bokomon explained. "It's special attack, Twin Sickle with cut anything down to size. And I mean anything."

"And it flies." Blake pointed out as Blake produced one of the weapons from his duster pocket. "Sickles for hands. Flying incest. And doesn't seem hospitable. With all the givens, I'd say… run!"

They didn't need any other incentive. They ran.

"Twin Sic…" Snimon was interrupted by a trio of bight lights. Photon bullets, burnt like little drops of flaming rain. Blake renewed his sprint, weapon still in hand.

"Move your tail!" They heard up ahead. Neemon ran right into the owner. A white car with large blue eyes, a long tail and gloves on her forepaws. Without stopping, Blake holstered the weapon, grabbed Neemon by the ear, cat by the scruff of the neck and ran towards where it was pointing, an opening in a mountainside.

They made it inside and Blake dropped the two anthromitphic animals and leaned into the wall.

"Where'd you come from?" He heard someone ask. Blake turned, finding a bushy brown haired boy, his age, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"It's complicated. And I really mean it's complicated." Blake answered.

"As in birds and bees complicated?" The boy asked in disbelief.

"As in, multi-dimensional, question everything you know about the laws of physics, complicated. Blake Steorra by the way." Blake offered a hand. "Nice to meet ya mate."

"Tai Kamyia." The boy introduced himself, taking the hand. "This is Agumon." He pointed out, the orange reptile who bowed restfully. "And Gabumon." And the other reptile, wearing a fur coat who waved. "You already meet Gatomon. Your digi-destine right?"

"I guess I am." Blake said a little confused. "These are my charges, the all knowing Bokomon. And the dim witted Neemon." He introduced the two digimon in his care.

"That's a relief. I thought I would need to change my name again." Neemon cheered.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all." Bokomon said, slightly confused that Blake hadn't handed over the ring, now that they found the owner. "If your digi-destine Tai Kamyia, would you happen to know a Takuya Kanbara?"

He thought for a moment before shaking his head. "Name rings a bell. I just can't remember where. Hope he's partner is a fighter though. It looks like we need all the help we can get." He turned to the cave opening with a thoughtful look on his face. "Just how are we going to get it?"

In Blake's duster pocket, Gatomon's tail ring began to glow as the dormant powers of the celestial digimon began to work. Ophanimon's Plans in the past, and the tail ring's subroutines in the present. Both began to work together in harmony.

"Hey! Tai! Blake!"

* * *

Kari looked at the sender. It was from Tai. How did he get to the digital world? She remembered hearing his digi-vice beeping and before he disappeared. Was it the digital world calling him back? Without a second thought, Kari hit yes.

"Hikari Kamyia." Came a voice Takuya recognised straight away. Ophanimon. "It is time."

"Who… who is this?"

"Go to the computer room at Odabia Junior High School. Await further instructions there." The screen switched off leaving the three children bemused.

A determined look appeared of Kari's face. "My brother needs me."

All three of them ran towards the school, upstairs on the second floor and into the computer lab, where two girls, one red hair, sixteen, wearing a tennis outfit, the other a year older the Kari, lavender hair wearing a bandana, was hovering over the shoulder of a fifteen year old, wearing casual clothes with a darker shade of red hair.

Kari recognised the two older kids right away. Koushiro Izumi was the one sitting at the computer, the former computer club president. The girl was Sora Takenouchi, former soccer player, now tennis player with a soft mothering side.

"Izzy! We got a message from the digital world" Kari informed the boy who was recovering from the high pitched screech.

"We know. We both got one. It told us to open Izzy's laptop but the battery on his computer ran out." the girl informed the two younger digi-denstine, along with their company, Davis who was following Kari and Takuya. Takuya insisted on coming with Kari the moment he heard the words 'Digital world' come out of her mouth. He mostly wanted to know how they knew about the Digital World in the first place, let alone how they intend to get there.

"I knew I should have recharged it after playing trigonometry trivia on the internet last night. Talk about fun." Izzy reminisced as he typed away on the computer, trying to open a link into the digital world. "Instead the voice sent us to the computer lab."

They heard someone skid into the room.

"Izzy!" Matt called out. The elder blonde sibling arrived with his younger brother. "Sora!"

"You two got the message too?!" Kari asked.

"Yeah." TK nodded. "Good timing too."

"What's the digital world? Is that a new amusement park based on that computer game?" Yolei asked in her cheerful bubbly voice. "I bet they've got a lot of great rides."

"Trust me. They've got some wild ones." Takuya told her, thinking back to some of his memorable Trailmon routes.

"I heard about it from Tai once." Davis muttered to himself. "He said there was a lot of digimon there. What ever they are."

"You know Tai?" T.K. asked him.

"He coaches Davis' soccer team." Kari answered for him.

"Hey guys. I've got an idea. Lets all go to the digital world." Yolei called out. Takuya was about to protest and tell her it isn't all fun and games until another voice interrupted.

"Yolei, weren't you coming over?" Another student, Cody walked into the computer room. "Remember, you were going to fix my computer. Mom was going to make Brownies."

"Oh. Sorry. I forgot." Yolei apologised.

"Takuya!" They heard another voice from a boy, Cody's age, wearing a large orange hat, carrying a large duffle ran into him.

"Sorry." The boy said to Cody. "Takuya. Your phone was ringing. I got the message too."

"You too?" Matt asked, looking at the new comer and the other google headed boy as Yolei and Cody left. Yolei was more disappointed.

* * *

"Look at those." Agumon pointed out. In the middle of the cave, there were two egg shaped metals. One on the left looked like an pink rose, while the other was decorated with flames with a spike though the top.

"That red one has the crest of courage on it." Tai pointed out. "Are they eggs?"

"I've never saw an egg with a spike in it." Agumon observed.

"It must have been rough on the chicken that lied that thing." Gatomon added.

"I think we should be more concerned about what might hatch from them." Blake responded, noticing that Tai was leaning towards the flaming egg.

"Lets have a closer look at this thing." He grabbed the egg with both hands. The moment he did, it began to glow. As did the digi-vice in his pocket. But he was more concerned about the fact that his hands felt like they touched a hot stove. The light was more then enough to force everyone to shield their eyes until the red light died down, and nine whips of light began to form from the light. Each a different colour. Black, white, green, red, blue, orange, yellow, pink, and grey. Tai observed that they looked like fireflies. They hovered for a moment before zipping out of the cave.

Tai stumbled back, skin on his palms blistered.

"Second degree burns." Blake concluded, pulling out a titanium box with a red crescent moon on the lid, from his backpack.

Bokomon then remembered something. "Blake. Where's the case holding the sprits?"

In answer, Blake pulled out the case containing the sprits, with little difficulty, much to the surprise of the gathered digimon and humans. Even Neemon wondered how a case almost twice the size of the bag could fit in side it along with the one holding the sprits until he got an answer. "It's bigger on the inside."

"No you nit! That's impossible." Bokomon scolded. Blake chuckled knowing that was the only explanation, and the dim witted rabbit was right on the money. Though, he was more concerned about treating Tai's burns.

* * *

"It's open! We're going back to the digital world! Prodigious!" Izzy cheered, grabbing his digi-vice, a small, circle device that confused Takuya. It didn't look like a D-tector, but it felt like the genuine article.

"I'm going with you!" Davis told them.

"That's impossible." TK stated.

"What?" Tommy asked in disbelief.

"Not just anyone can go. You need a digi-vice." TK continued.

Takuya slumped his shoulders in defeat. His D-tector turned back into a phone when Koichi was revived. And that phone was passed to Shinya in turn. Davis on the other hand refused to give up.

"Listen TC!" Davis yelled at the younger blonde sibling. "If you can go! So can I!"

At that moment, the digital gate on the computer opened, and nine wisps of light flew out of the computer. Tommy caught the grey wisp, Takuya caught the orange and Davis caught the blue. The black, white, pink and green wisps flew out the window while the yellow and red ones flew out the door to be caught by Yolei and Cody.

Meanwhile, outside the Junior High Building.

"Come on Zoe. I don't want to be late!" JP ran towards the building with Zoe behind, wondering how the formally overweight boy could now have enough energy to run from the Mall to the school with eight bags of shopping in his arms. She knew that the old jumpsuit was hiding more then a few pounds of body fat but this was…

She lost her train of thought when two wisps of light flew out of the window above. The green wisp headed for JP while the pink wisp came right for Zoe. Both caught in their hands.

The black and white wisps headed across the Rainbow Bridge and made a beeline for a train with a set of twins, not going unnoticed by a young man who had given up on following his brother.

Back in the computer lab.

"What's this?!" Davis showed the device that landed in his hands to the others. The the surprise of the others, it was a digi-vice. A different model to the rest. Izzy made a note of the features. Infered scanner, card reader, and an antenna on one side of the screen. Takuya found the familiar colour theme comforting, but the device felt empty. He guessed he needed to find Agunimon's sprit again. They turned to the computer.

"We better go now." Sora told them.

"While the gate to the digital world is still open." Izzy added.

"Yeah but how long will it stay open for?" Matt asked.

"I don't care." Kari said with conviction setting the serious mood. "I'm going to help my brother."

The mood was then broken by Davis walking up to them "Can I get Donkey Madness on this thing?"

"It's not a game." Izzy reprimanded calmly. "If the digital world sends you a digi-vice, then there's a reason and you should take it seriously."

Takuya thought on those words a moment. One thing for sure, these guys were in fact digi-destine.

"I'm not waiting any longer." Kari snapped, placing her digi-vice to the screen. The screen glowed and she was swallowed by a blinding light. When the light vanished, she was gone.

"Wait for me." Takuya yelled, doing the same, placing his familiar red and black digi-vice up to the screen, he disappeared into the light and he was gone.

"I'm with you two." TK was next, raising his digi-vice to the screen and he disappeared.

"Don't leave without me!" Tommy called out, raising the blue and green digi-vice the screen.

"Don't leave me out of the action." Matt said as he raised his digi-vice to the screen. Both of them disappeared in.

Davis watched the whole thing, mouth opened and very scared now. He almost missed Izzy telling him it was his turn. He shock away the fear and raised the device to the computer. "I'm there." He was swallowed by the light, and pulled into the digital world.

"Your turn Izzy." Sora told the boy. Izzy produced his digi-vice, raised it to the screen…

"What's going on in here!" Came a voice…

* * *

"Wow. My first time being downloaded." Davis said in awe. He, Takuya, Tommy, Kari, TK and Matt arrived in a familiar, lush forest. Tommy was still holding Takuya's duffle, Kari holding her Digi-vice in hand, looking for her brother's digi-vice signal. She found it, along with Matt's and TK's but she couldn't find any of the other signals of the new digi-vices. Making a note to ask Izzy about it later, she lead the group towards her brother.

"Everything looks different Takuya." Tommy pointed out. "How long have we been gone?" He asked.

"Well, we've been in the digital world for months and it seemed like only a few hours in the real world Tommy." Takuya reminded him.

"This place doesn't seem so scary." Davis observed. "The way Tai put it, there were monsters everywhere." He noticed something in the corner, causing Takuya and Tommy to notice. It was a vending machine. Davis approached it, with a coin in hand. Takuya began to debate wether it was a good idea to tell him that yen was no good in the digital world until something other then a canned drink fell out of the machine.

TK, Matt and Kari heard the noise, turned to see that a river of Numemon had decided the group, with Davis sitting in the middle of it, unnoticed by the slug like digimon. Even Kari had to stifle back a laugh.

"Haha. Very funny." Davis shot at TK. Takuya offered a hand.

"You have to admit, it was a little." Takuya reminded him. Davis rejected the offered hand and helped himself up and the six continued walking.

"Were those things digimon?" Davis asked the obvious question.

"Yep. There're tonnes of other ones too, a lot cuter then those." Kari answered.

"And a lot scarer ones too." TK added.

"Numemon aren't great fighters at least." Matt added. "Unless they're in large groups."

"Tai!" Kari called out when a familiar bushy haired teenager ran out of the clearing.

"Hi guys.! I'm glad you all made it!" Tai yelled, Agumon, Gatomon, Gabumon following, along with two digimon and a human Kari had never seen before. But the human looked familiar to Takuya, but the digimon were a defiant to both him and Tommy.

"Tommy! Takuya!" The rabbet wearing a pair of red pants ran up to the two.

"Neemon!" Tommy yelled, glad to see the dimwitted digimon again, embracing him in a hug.

"Bokomon!" Takuya called.

"Takuya. Tommy. It's so good to see you again." The white digimon said to the google head.

"Tai!" Davis called out. "I told those guys you'd be alright."

"Davis? Wh… what are you doing here?" Tai asked confused. "And who are you guys?" He pointed to the two unfamiliar boys, with the digimon he thought were Blake's partners.

"You can talk." TK said. "Who's that?" He pointed to the other human. "And where's Patamon?"

A gasp bought their attention to Kari, with Gatomon in her arms. "Your tail ring. Tell me what happened."

"One day this bossy human appeared and began making digimon into his slaves." Gatomon explained as they walked. "He said 'I am the digimon emperor!' I heard we're all gonna punch a time clock too."

"More humans?" Bokomon said surprised.

"Well there goes the neighbourhood." TK muttered.

"And he's got this strange new black digi-vice that makes us unable to digi-volve. And there are also rumours that the catalyst had disappeared from Infinity Mountain." Gatomon continued. The human produced a new digi-vice from his duster pocket, a black device with gold handles.

"Does it look anything like this?" Blake asked. The cat digi-mon looked at it with supposition, comparing it with the one she saw the emperor with but had to shake her head, seeing the buttons in the wrong place, the hexagon around the screen and the inferred scanner.

"Hey! That looks like one of the digi-vices that came out of the computer!" Matt pointed out. "Where did you get that?"

"It was given to me by an angel attribute digimon." Blake answered, catching the attention of Takuya and Tommy. "Lady Ophanimon."

'So that's what came out of the egg when I picked it up.' Tai thought to himself leaving what Blake answered unheard, narrowing his brow in thought. 'Nine new digi-vices. Did Davis, Takuya and Tommy get one? What's their purpose in the digital world? And who got the other digi-vices?'

"You know Lady Ophanimon?" Takuya questioned in shock.

"He was charged with protecting us and the sprits until we found you and the other warrior hosts." Bokomon answered. "Blake Steorra was chosen by the celestial digimon because of his experience, not only in arcane and close quarters combat but in diminutional and time travel."

"In other words. I'm a dimension jumper." Blake clarified from Takuya's side, slipping his hand away from Takuya's pocket. This didn't go unnoticed by Bokomon or Tai. Both questioned the gesture, but didn't voice it. "Now that I've delivered you two, I don't like where I've brought you guys to." Blake muttered, turning to Gatomon. "What more can you tell me about this Digimon Emperor? And his Black Digi-vice."

"The black digi-vice is draining our power, making us all weak as new born kittens. He also uses these dark rings to control us. Once they capture you, your a slave for life. These collars do everything but get rid of fleas."

"I know. He's watching us right now." Blake pointed out. The group stopped and turned to where he was pointing. Floating in mid air was a control ring. Faster then anyone could blink, a gun was drawn, a bullet of photons was fired, and the ring was hit, braking up into a dozen or so pieces. "He's toying with us."

"Digimon Emperor." Kari spat. "I'd like to slap a control ring around him."

"Get in line dear. I get first stab. You can have the remains."

"Well, sooner we get those sprits, the sooner we can start saving the world." Takuya said.

"Always in a hurry to get nowhere aren't we Takuya." Bokomon pointed out.

"Remind you of someone." Matt jabbed at Tai. He'd ident respond to the blonds remark, Tai was still deep in thought. Mostly about sprits. Bokomon brought it up before, and now Takuya.

"I'm guessing you were the lone wolf before you were whisked away to the digital world." Takuya pointed out.

"What makes you say that?" Matt asked.

"I know the type."

"Anyway, there's something you two need to hear first." Bokomon told them. "And something you might find interesting." They made it to the cave where the two egg shaped metals sat.

"That one looks like a deflated beach ball." TK pointed out immediately.

"No kidding." Matt sighed. "It's got a spike though it."

"That other one looks like a rose shape pillow." Kari mentioned. "Mimi would go mad over that. Maybe I should show her while she's still in Shinjuku."

"They're ores of digi-metals. The one on the left represents the attribute of courage. The other, kindness." Bokomon pointed out. "I'm just curious to why they're here. In our time, digi-metals were used as a peudso-digi-volving path. Some digimon like Veemon or Patamon with the digi-metal of flame could digivole into Flamedramon or Baromon but they'd have difficulty de-digivolving back." As he was talking, Bokomon opened the case that Neemon was carrying, retrieving a glass sphere with an orange light inside. Tommy recognised right away as the sprit of Agunimon, but there was something wrong with it. Wasn't it a totem before?

"Wait. Why did you leave them here?" Takuya asked as Tai finally pulled his hands form his pockets. Kari gasped, seeing the reddened skin. Tai was glad that the 'nanite cream' was working.

"What happened?" Kari demanded.

"The digi-metal of courage burnt him." Bokomon told them. "But it looked a lot worse a few minutes ago. What was that cream?" He asked Blake.

"Let's just say I've worked a few miracles in my lifetime." Blake said. "Besides, wasn't much of a burn, just second degree."

"Anyway, I'm not risking moving either of the metals without the proper… Neemon!" Bokomon yelled in shock. "Why are you sitting on that ore!?"

The whole room's attention shifted to Neemon sitting on the digi-metal of courage awkwardly. "I wanna be a mommy too."

"That is not an egg. Now get off before you… burn. Something's wrong here."

Blake shooed Neemon off the metal and picked it up, bracing himself for a burning sensation. Davis did the same with the kindness counterpart, not sure what to expect, but it was more like touching a car's hood, on a cold spring morning. Then something happened.

"Uh oh." Blake muttered as a purple light filled the room.

"Yahoo!" A blue reptile jumped out of the light and began bouncing around Davis, much to the confusion of the others. "Made it at last! Made it at last! I thought I was going to be torn apart in that vortex." When he finally stopped bouncing around, he raised a hand to Davis. "My name's Veemon. But you can just call me Veemon."

Davis on the other hand just blinked, not sure what to think of the strange reptile.

"Veemon; Vaccne attribute rookie digimon." Bokomon informed the others. "It's strong sense of justice is only matched by it's love of fun and pranks. It's Vee-headbutt will only prove how head headed he is."

"Nice to meet ya Davish." Veemon said, his lisp becoming more obvious. "I've been waiting a very long time to meet ya."

Finally finding the ability to talk, Davis spoke. "I think you got the wrong guy."

"Nope. Your the one alright. My last partner said I'd know my true partner when I meet him. Don't call Ryo a liar please."

'Ryo?' Agumon thought to himself. The name was familiar, but he couldn't remember where he heard it from. Then the whole cave shock.

"Great! Just what we need to go with a fun loving reptile!" Blake spat. "An earthquake!"

"No. Look up there!" Matt pointed to a hole that began to open and a grey monoclonius tried to make it's way though it.

"It's a monster!" Davis screamed.

"No. It's Monochromon." Bokomon clarified. "Champion level, Data Digimon, it's shell is harder then diamonds, and it'll blow you away with it's volcanic strike attack."

"Pepper Breath!"

"Blue Blaster!"

Both attacks just dissipated off his thick hide as the reptile made a counter attack. Tommy pushed Agumon out of the way just in time while Takuya pulled Gabumon towards him.

"We can't fight him in here!" Takuya yelled. "Everybody out!" He yelled, pointing to the exit, ushering humans and digimon out while shoving both metals in his bag, then running to keep up with Bokomon.

"Bokomon! Give me the sprit of flame!" Takuya yelled as they ran.

"What! Now!" Bokomon huffed as they made it outside. A poorly aimed volcanic strike nearly missing them, heading for Kari, who was pushed out of the way by Gatomon.

"I know you said there's no going back but they can't digi-volve." Takuya was now really worried, noticing that Kari wasn't moving.

Bokomon nodded, produced the glass sphere that he retrieved from the case earlier from inside his hamaki. "Just remember the responsibilities that comes with it my boy. Just say you'll accept the burden."

"I accept the burden okay." Takuya said. "Just hand it…" He was cut off by the sphere smashing and the burning orange wisp inside flying out and hitting Takuya in the chest. It started as a burning sensation that spread across his limbs and felt like he was burning from the inside until the sensation dulled, or he became more tolerant to the pain. He remembered this feeling, when he stood in the circle, surrounded by fire and light, when the power of Agunimon coursed though him. This time, it was stronger, like it was apart of him. It was him now. Takuya. Agunimon. Two faces of the same warrior.

'Takuya.' He heard Agunimon's voice. It was like an old friend returning from a long trip, far away, and seeing them again for the first time. 'Are you ready?'

"Lend me your strength Agunimon so I can help them." Takuya asked.

'Always when you need it.' He heard, he could have sworn he noticed Agunimon smiling as he spoke.

Fractal code appeared around Takuya as Monochromon's Volcanic Strike erupted from the tunnel, threading to burn Davis and Veemon to a crisp. Agunimon leapt out of the flaming shell, grabbed the human and digimon and pulled them from the path of the flaming attack before they were hit, then intercepted the charging controlled digimon, kicking him to the ground and landing on the other side of the clearing, standing between Monochromon and Kari, flames erupting from joints in his armour.

"He did it. He sprit evolved." Tommy cheered.

"Spirt Evolved?" Tai questioned.

"A human turned into a digimon?" Matt stammered in shock.

Monochromon recovered from the attack and charged at the biggest threat, that being Takuya. He knew he couldn't dodge the charge, so he had to meet it head on. It failed as he was thrown into the air.

"Takuya!"

In Tai's hand, his digi-vice began to glow and change shape, resulting in a larger device with an inferred scanner and a card reader. It looked like the ones Takuya, Davis, and Tommy were given, but with a different colour theme, orange body with blue buttons and white grips. The same thing happened to Matt's digi-vice, turing it into a newer model with blue body and silver grips.

A symbol appeared on the display, accompanied by a voice.

"It is time."

In that moment, he knew what Agumon needed. The energy his partner needed was no longer there and an alternate source was required. Takuya gave up a piece of his humanity, his sprit fused to his partner's, and Tai was willing to go further then that. Just not yet. But he felt the fires of courage burn inside of him. He had given up the crest for the sake of the digital world years ago, but it's power was deep in his heart, about to be let out. A ring of fractal code appeared around his hand and he swiped the code with the digi-vice's scanner.

"Execute: Digivolution, Activate."

To anyone watching from the outside, they could see the chosen of courage's hands envelope in flames while Agumon was cocooned in fractal code. Inside, Agumon's body began to strip away into a wire frame that began to grow in size until it was the size and shape of his champion form. A new skin began to form from the old skin and soon, he was Agumon no more and the fractal code disappeared. Greymon looked down at his opponent with fence eyes, and charged at Monochomon, locking him in place.

Takuya noticed the black ring around the dinosaur digimon's waist. He took the opportunity, charging at the stalemated opponent.

"Pyro Punch!"

There was a loud clang that echoed thought the forest… and the dark ring broke apart. Monochromon went limp in Greymon's arms as he and Agunimon were cocooned in fractal code again, leaving Agumon and Takuya when it vanished.

Kari ran up to the knocked out digital dinosaur, making sure it wasn't really injured. Takuya stood up looked at his hands with disbelief, finding the around it rippling like an aura of flame. He had a feeling that he was no longer completely human anymore.

Was that what Bokomon meant by burden?

"Hey!" Agumon said from behind. Takuya turned and found him offering a claw. "Your not a half bad fighter. It was nice working with you." Takuya took it, smiling.

"Your not so bad yourself." Takuya commented. "We gotta do it again."

"Sooner rather then later." Tai commented to the two. He showed them the lights on the radar feature of his new digi-vice, there were two lights a fair distance away from the centre.

"Izzy and Sora!" Kari suddenly yelled. "They must have gotten into the digital world too."

"We better find them."

* * *

Blake watched the scene with interest. Taking note of the technique, the personalities, and the situation. With the monochromon liberated, Kari was able to just walk up to him and rub his nose then wave him off.

"I can't believe that the digimon emperor can turn such a nice digimon into such a nasty creature." TK commented behind him.

"It isn't right." Blake muttered. "He has to be stopped." From inside his bag, Blake produced a control ring, sealed inside a plastic container that dampened signals and sound. He thought that it might be the key to shutting off the control rings for good.

As for the fight, he could have intervened at anytime. He wanted to see what these guys would do. He fiddled with his digi-vice in his pocket before asking himself a question…

Why was Tai's hands burnt by the metal of flame when his weren't?

"Blake! Davis! Tommy!" Tai called out to the distant members of their group as Blake pulled out a sphere from his bag. A device from his city. His time. His world.

* * *

Dark Fact - Slavery: Slavery is not a new concept to humanity. It has existed in one form or another in the whole of human history. Though the social, economic and legal position of slaves varied from place to place, era to era, including the modern day. Human trafficking remains an international problem with an estimated 30 million living in illegal slavery.

Japanese Fact - Sports: A significant part of Japanese Culture and community, sports such as football, baseball, basketball and of cause soccer, all introduced by foreigners after the Meiji Restoration, are played across the country, including in after school activities. The most popular sport in modern japan is Baseball, introduced in 1872 by an american educator, Horace Wilson.


	3. Guilmon Comes Alive

**Chapter two: Guilmon Comes Alive**

Davis watched the whole thing, mouth opened and very scared now. He almost missed Izzy telling him it was his turn. He shock away the fear and raised the device to the computer. "I'm there." He was swallowed by the light, and pulled into the digital world.

"Your turn Izzy." Sora told the boy. Izzy produced his digi-vice, raised it to the screen…

"What's going on in here!" Yolei skidded to the door, interrupting the process.

"Huh!? Nothing." Izzy's device bounced in his hands as he tired to conceal it form the lavender haired girl and the bowl cut boy.

"But Izzy. What was that light?" Yolei demanded.

"Uh. The computer must need a new screensaver." Sora answered, rubbing the back of her head, a tell tail give away for her bluff. There was a knock at the door. A heavy set boy with brown hair and a slender foreign girl with long blonde hair stood by the door.

"I guess you guys got the message too." The girl said.

There was a flash of light, the two new comers, Yolei, Cody, Izzy and Sora vanished.

* * *

"I just remembered that I forgot to remember something. I gotta go." Joe really needed to stay, but this wasn't something he could just ignore. With his phone in hand, he walked out of the medical library reading the message again.

"The digimon need our help. Are you ready to begin?" It read. He had a feeling there was more. As much as he wanted to keep studying, but if the digital world calls, sooner or later, it'll be at your door step. The diablomon incident caused him to nearly fail his entrance exam. And Gomamon would probably run head first into anything, with or without him.

There was no question. He hit yes.

The phone switched off suddenly.

"Ophanimon wasn't going to lead you to the digital world." He heard someone say from behind. Joe turned suddenly. There was a woman, in a brown cloak. He couldn't see her face from under the hood.

"Who are you?"

"The woman with the message." She answered. "Mimi will be arriving at terminal two of the Narita International Airport in twenty minutes. By a crewel twist of fate, the town car her agent hired is going to suffer engine problems. Why don't you take your dad's car and pick her up and take her to Shinjuku Park."

"Why Shinjuku Park?" Joe asked. He could tell the woman was smiling. She was chuckling.

"Something is coming." She answered walking off. Joe followed but when she turned the corner down a dead end alley, only to lose her when she turned the corner, like she vanished into thin air.

* * *

"Neemon! Stop trying to grab the wheel!" Takuya scolded the digital rabbit.

"But I wanna try." Neemon protested.

"Knowing you, we'll crash before you figure out where the accelerator is." Bokomon said, amazed at how a machine this size could fit in a small sphere. Matter tectonics, Blake said but it was still new to him. He turned back to the conversation with Tommy. "And you say that the human world are full of these contraptions. Wouldn't be hard for them to move around."

"You have no idea." Matt told the scholar.

The silver jeep speed though the landscape, Matt, TK, Tommy and Takuya in the back, Kari and Tai sharing the passenger seat, with their digimon partners and entourages either sleeping, reading, or trying to grab the wheel. Blake slapping his hand away each time. It was surprisingly roomy, for seven humans and five rookie digimon.

"Must be a good book." Matt said to his little brother.

"What makes you say that?" TK asked, eyes not moving from the page he was on. Bokomon mentioned writing about Takuya's advatures and decided to read it. It was a testament to Bokomon's skills as a writer, and TK recently had an ambition to write about his own adventures in the digital world and penned out a few chapters of his time with Patamon. The same Patamon who couldn't tell you why he wore a pink hamaki, just that reminded him of Papamon. He didn't know that answers would be found in Bokomon's book. Some he would be forced to rewrite his whole view on the world.

"It shouldn't be too far. About an hour away." Tai said to Blake. The driver put on a sly smile. Time to show off a little.

"Let's try half an hour." He pulled a lever as the screen in the middle of the console read 'Anti-graves powering up.' The jeep shook as it began to ascend into the air.

"Are we flying?" Tommy asked dumfounded.

"Nope. Car's flying. We're just along for the ride."

* * *

Takato opened his eyes and raised his hands to rub out the dirt. He felt something rubbing against his side. He looked to see what it was… A large red dinosaur with big yellow eyes stood over him. Takato yelped and tried to back away until… he remembered something.

"Hi." The reptile said again.

He couldn't believe it. Guilmon. His creation. His own real live digimon. "Hi Guilmon." Takato said, hugging his new friend, only then he heard yelling. And then Guilmon began to growl.

"Guilmon?"

* * *

"Where did we disappear to Izzy!" Yolei yelled, angry as hell that she wasn't getting any answers from the red head. The had a dizzy ride though a vortex, her glasses were broken and Izzy was stonewalling.

"I told you already Yolei, I don't know." Izzy said, fearing the younger girl's wrath but still trying to fane ignorance.

"I'm not letting you off the hook that easy. I know you know were we are." She said, now wondering if it had something to do with what they were talking about earlier. And that message. "Now what is the digital world and what exactly are digimon."

"I don't know what your talking about." Izzy claimed.

JP felt sorry for the red head. Being on the sharp end of a woman's wrath, since he and Zoe began going out, just to see if it would work. A month later, neither had any issues. He found the youngest of their little group, standing aside, watching the fight unfold with disinterest.

"Think she'll give the poor kid a brake?" Sora heard the foreign girl ask her.

"I doubt it." She answered, turning to the girl. "I'm Sora by the way."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Zoe. You're digi-destine right."

"Yeah. How'd you guess?"

"I don't know. Bright light, big field, oh lets not forget the pink bird, red incest and the big eared mammal coming towards us." Zoe pointed towards a nearby hill where said creatures were running up.

"Biyomon!" Sora called out, catching Izzy's attention.

"Tentomon!" Izzy called to the digimon. Yolei was startled by the approaching digimon.

"Is that a Patamon?" Zoe asked, observing the orange digimon was wearing a pink hamaki.

"Izzy! Your a sight for big green sore eyes!" The insect called out.

"I've missed you Sora." The bird told the red head as the two embraced each other in a hug.

The reunion didn't last long. As a shadow fell over them, Sora felt a cold chill run down her spine. She looked up in time to see the praying mantis digimon close in on her.

"Pyro Sphere!" A yellow fire ball hit Snimon in the side of the face, causing him to miss, put two groves in the ground, and make fly back into the air again. Sora looked at her saviour, a large red dinosaur with black markings over his face, and yellow eyes that were focused on Snimon.

"Spiral Twister!"

"Boom Bubble!"

"Super Shocker!"

The partner digimon fired attacks in succession, Snimon dodging them, now focused on one target. The dinosaur. As Snimon got in close again, the dinosaur rolled out of the way.

"Guilmon!" They heard a voice call out. A google wearing boy, about two years younger then they are, stopped to catch his breath. "I really need to stop cutting gym class." He panted.

"Who's that?" Sora asked.

"No idea. And I've never seen that digimon before." Izzy answered and added, looking at the fearsome red digital dinosaur. He hoped that it was on their side. Then it happened… cracks in the ground began to form, and the ground opened, under Guilmon's feet. He jumped out of the way in time…

The same couldn't be said for his partner. He grabbed hold of what was nearest to him, which at the time, was Patamon. The little digimon did his best to keep the brown haired boy from falling in, but couldn't lift his weight. Takato fell into the hole screaming.

"Takatomon!" Guilmon yelled.

"Patamon!" Chosen children yelled.

"The ground just opened up and swallowed them." Yolei fell to the ground, she and Cody were shaking in fear.

"Well, I want to go home now." Cody said, hoping it was possible. All he wanted now was to see his mom and his grandfather again.

Guilmon turned his attention to the attacking Snimon, only ambition now was to find his tamer, his friend, his partner. He couldn't do that while he was under attack. Primal Instinct and rational thought renewed he's ferrous stance as he tackled the attacking digimon to the ground, biting him. Hard. Snimon struggled to get his arm out of the dinosaur's jaw, eventually slashing him with the other sickle.

Snimon flew off to lick his wounds. But more would come.

Sora and Zoe helped pick Yolei up from the ground. "We have to get away now!" Zoe yelled at them. No one argued. Not even Guilmon, who noticed that Takato's backpack was still on the ground. He picked it up. They all ran.

"I can't take this! I wanna go home!"

* * *

Takato woke up, head throbbing in pain. "That was not fun.." He muttered to himself, then noticing his surroundings, and his situation. He was staring out across a canyon range. And worse, his limbs were bolted to the side of a cliff.

"I… I must be dreaming again." Takato said fearfully. "Wh… where am I?"

"You're just hanging out." He heard a voice say. Takato turned his head upwards to the voice.

"Gee, thanks. I thought I was plunging to my death very slowly. That's a load off my mind." Takato said with confidence he didn't realise he had. "And you would be?"

"I'm your worse nightmare come to life." The voice said. Takato got a good look at him. He was just a kid. Older then him, sure. Spiky blue hair, thick sunglasses, a cape. "Frankly I'm disappointed that I was able to catch you so easily."

"You call that easy? Just great, I create a digimon, it comes to life, and now I don't get to enjoy it." Takato mattered, not noticing that his voice is carrying. "Think Takato. I'm starting to wish I paid attention in school. What happened to my digimon anyway?"

"That reminds me." The kid said, snapping his fingers, a section of the cliff broke off. It twisted until he saw a Patamon, gagged and struggling against his restraints.

"Ugh. I hate to say it, but you've got the wrong digimon." Takato said, pointing out the emperor's blunder. "Mine's the cool red one. Not that Patamon isn't cool. Angemon is pretty cool. But I think Agumon is cooler… ugh. I'm rambling aren't I. Just who are you? I don't remember Kenta saying anything about a weird kid in any of the computer games."

* * *

"I think we lost them." Izzy whispered to the others when they made it to a tropical forest of sorts. Guilmon moped about losing his tamer. There was so much about him he didn't know. So many things about him. So many smells.

"You guys okay?" Sora asked the unfamiliar humans. Zoe huffed out an 'I'm fine' while JP just nodded. They heard beeping from from their pockets. Sora, Izzy, Zoe, JP, Yolei and Cody produced their digi-vices, to find a symbol on them. Zoe and JP recognised what it was and the voice that came with it.

"Time is short children. Help will soon arrive. Go to the temple and retrieve the metals of Thunder and Wind." Ophanimon's voice said. The screen went black. Biyomon and Tentomon looked at each other.

"Did she mean that temple?" Tentomon asked.

"Maybe. No one's been there for a while." Biyomon answered.

"Temple?" Sora asked.

"Yeah. But it's closed down now." Biyomon answered, pointing to a large mayan pyramid.

"Well, if Ophanimon is leading us there, there has to be something important." Zoe noted as she took the lead.

* * *

TK shivered when he read the part about Duskmon being Koji's brother. It twisted as TK's heart, the thought of fighting your own brother. As he went on reading, the more he wanted to stop, forget he ever read this story, but something made his continue.

"They're stopping." Tai noted.

"Maybe they're going to the temple." Agumon told them.

"That's weird. There's another signal." Kari said, pointing to one of the white dots on the radar sphere.

Matt pushed forward to look. "What's he doing out there all alone?"

"Lets ask him and find out." Takuya suggested, pulling out his own digi-vice and pushing a few buttons before talking into it like a radio. "Hello?"

* * *

"Hello? Anyone there?" The emperor pulled out the strange digi-vice he took from the boy. A symbol had appeared on the screen, an orange kanji for fire.

"Who is this?" He demanded.

A voice on the other end sighed. A familiar voice. "Change the station please Takuya. First it was the Beatles and now it's the emperor. What's going to invade the radio waves next? Napoleon?"

The voices cut off. The emperor looked over the edge of the cliff. "Who was that?" He demanded to the boy he had bolted to the cliff.

* * *

"Did I just call the Emperor's digi-vice?" Takuya asked unsure.

"That gives me an idea. Kari, in my bag, there's a titanium case." Blake instructed. "I need one of the containers inside."

Kari did just that, found a titanium case, labeled with, 'Spyware devices' opened it and pulled out a glass petri dish. Inside was a chip. "What's this?"

"A bug." Blake explained. "Slip that into the emperor's black digi-vice and we'll hear every word he says."

"But if we have the digi-vice, why not just destroy it?" Tai asked.

"He could make a new one. At least with that inside it, we have a strategic advantage." Blake went on. "Besides, I imagine he talks to himself a lot."

"So were spying on him now?" TK asked incredulity.

"I prefer to call it staying a step ahead of the enemy. It might just make saving the digital world easier if we knew what he was targeting."

TK leaned back into the seat, only liking the answer a little, but in the end, he was right. Any advantage was a good one, especially with this adversary. He went back to Bokomon's story, where Patamon was attacking Velgemon.

Tai pointed out a large stone pyramid.

* * *

"I'm exhausted! Hasn't anyone ever heard of escalators!" Yolei voiced.

"Do you always complain this much at home?" JP asked the girl, only to get a slap over the head by Zoe.

"Just look at it this way Yolei." Biyomon assured her. "Only a few more steps to go." She presented the final staircase leading up to a pair of alters. Guilmon ran ahead to sniff what was on them.

"They look like digi-eggs." Sora observed. One was brown with a purple mark on it. The other was white with a pair of wings. Both had symbols on them that Izzy and Sora found familiar. Crests of Knowledge and Love. Sora and Izzy walked up to them and touched the eggs that bore the symbols of Knowledge and Love respectively. Izzy got an electric shock for his troubles, and Sora was thrown back into one of the pillars.

"Sora!"

"Izzy!"

"You guys okay?" JP asked, helping Sora to her feet.

"Yeah. Just some static electricity." Izzy assured him.

"Didn't sound like static to me Izzy." Tentomon interrupted. "It sounded more like… thunder."

"And I've got a splitting headache." Sora said, cradling her forehead in her hand. And the purple flash of light wasn't helping. Two digimon, one that looked like a hawk, and the other was more like an armadillo appeared and were thrown into Yolei and Cody.

"Apologies and greetings young lady. That vortex twisted all over the place. I'm Hawkmon and…" He turned towards the yellow armadillo. "Armadillomon. Wake up. We've arrived."

The armadillo opened his eyes after being prodded by the digital bird's wing. He yawned. "Why'd you have to wake me up? I was having the nicest dream. And I think my shell fell to sleep." He asked, noticing the humans and digimon staring at him. "Howdy."

"As I was saying, this is my good friend Armadillomon." Hawkmon turned to Yolei. "I've been waiting to make your acquaintance."

"You talking to me?" Yolei asked.

"Hi. I'm Armadillomon and you and I a partners Cody." The slightly sleepy digimon informed the young boy.

"Uh… well…" Cody was confused to say the least. Where did this armadillo come from? And why was it saying that he and him were partners?

"So then Yolei. You and I shall be working together as a team." Hawkmon reminded his human partner.

"What?" Yolei staggered back. "I don't fight. Expect with my sister about who gets the last cookie."

"Are you saying you refuse to fight? Why do I get stuck with the defective human?"

Sora smiled, reminded of Mimi, while Zoe giggled at the two. The blond girl placed a hand on Yolei's shoulder. "You don't have to fight if you don't want to." Zoe reassured her. "But there are some things worth fighting for, like that last cookie. No one's telling you to take on this responsibility. But if you do Yolei, you won't be alone."

"She right Yolei." Sora agreed, holding Yolei's hands. "You'll have Hawkmon by your side every step of the way. And the more you do to help your digimon, the closer the two of you will become. And that's a bond that you'll have for life."

"And you'll have us too." Zoe added. "No matter what."

The girls proceeded to reassure her, while Izzy and JP walked up to Cody.

"So tell us, what do you think of the digital world so far Cody?" Izzy asked.

Cody looked down. "I don't know. I've only been here for a short time."

"No opinions yet?" JP asked,

"I try not to make up my mind until I have all the information, but this place is so new to me, I have so many unanswered questions." He admitted.

"I'm pretty sure I know someone who can answer them for you." JP assured him. "Hopefully we can find him and that dim witted bunny. But until then, just remember that we learn from experience and from our mistakes."

Izzy nodded. "And if there's anything you can't solve, just come to me and we'll solve it together."

Their talks were interrupted by growling. "What's wrong dino-boy?" JP asked Guilmon. They heard footsteps.

"How many stairs can a mayan temple have?" They heard a boy ask.

"Too much if you ask me Tommy." An older boy said… a familiar voice. Matt's.

"Well just be glad that we're not starting from the bottom." Another voice.

"Besides, it's not like we don't need the…" Five humans and five digimon walked up the stairs. The humans were immediacy familiar. "Hey guys."

"Takky! Tommy!" JP called out.

"Matt! Tai!" Sora called.

"Hey TK, Kari." Izzy greeted.

"Bokomon! Neemon!" Zoe ran up to the two digimon and hugged them.

"Zoe, dear girl. You've grown since you departed." Bokomon observed. "And you've both lost weight too I see."

"Did your chest get bigger?" Neemon asked. In inappropriate question was answered by a scream and a slap from the blonde haired girl. "Ow! It was just a question."

"Neemon. You have a lot to learn about humans. Females most of all." Bokomon turned to Zoe. "Remember dear. He's an idiot. I see you've meet some more digi… what in the worlds is that?" He pointed to the red dinosaur.

"You don't know?" Zoe asked.

"I've never seen a digimon like him. Where did he come from?" Guilmon kept growling than ran down the stairs.

"Hey!" They heard a voice. "That tickles!" They heard scuffing and then a burp.

"Yummy." Guilmon said. "Have you got anymore?"

"That's new. A lizard that likes bread." The voice chuckled. "I'm surprised that I had that one. I knew it was there, I wouldn't have picked up the other loaf."

Another human, around Izzy's age reached the top of the stairs with the dinosaur following behind. Brown hair, pale skin and grey eyes. He wore a leather duster that was well used. "Sorry. Who does this belong to?" He asked, pointing to the reptile that was rubbing against his side.

"A kid that was swallowed by a hole." Yolei answered.

"A hole?" Kari asked in disbelief.

"Along with Patamon." JP added.

"WHAT!" Both Bokomon and TK yelled. "He have to find him!" Bokomon yelled.

"No problem." The orange hat wearing boy said. "We can grab our sprits and we can get them."

"Where's your partners?" Sora asked.

Takuya and Tommy smirked as JP and Zoe joined in on the inside joke. "That the thing about us."

* * *

"Let him go! He has nothing to do with me!" Takato yelled.

"Yeah right." The kid sighed. "You both have been trespassing on my garden without my permission. And as punishment. You be forced to watch as I make Patamon my slave."

A control ring appeared in the air and began to inch closer to Patamon as he struggled against his bindings. Takato was helpless to watch, hoping for something, anything…

"Attention Digimon Emperor! You are in violation of the Sentient Rights Movement, article seven epsilon. A class alpha violation punishable by execution. We have the area surrounded. Surrender now and we will allow you the choice of your termination." A voice yelled over Takato's digi-vice.

"Who is this?" The emperor demanded. "Who do you think you are?"

"You're smart. If you figure it out in time, you'll win the grand price. Oops. Times up. Time for execution. Time to execute. Kumamon!" The voice cut off.

"Blizzard Blaster!" A quartet of snowballs hit the control ring, shattering it into bits of data

"What!"

"Pryo Darts!" Small firebolt hit the restraints the kept Patamon and Takato bolted to the cliff face. Takato stared to fall.

"Hurricane Twister!" A stream of careful wind broke Takato's fall. What it didn't do was prepare the ten year old son of bakers for his digimon to leap on top of him in sheer joy. Meanwhile, the hamaki wearing Patamon landed on TK's chest.

"Great." The emperor turned away…

* * *

Kazumon landed at where the others had gathered. She handed the red and white device to Takato. "Here you go." She said. "I didn't catch your name either."

"It's Takato." He said as he inspected the device. He remembered the dream where the girl swiped a card though her digi-vice, and found a card reader on his own.

"And for you." Zoe gave the black digi-vice to Blake, who rushed into action, braking open the outer casing and wired the microchip in. He closed it just in time for the device to fly out of his hands, and into the Emperor's.

"Snimon!" He called out. The praying mantis digimon knocked a young clocked woman off the cliff, who managed to land on her feet and run off much to the confusion of the assembled children. "Mojyamon!" A large yeti digimon appeared from behind a cliff "Drimogemon!" The earth shock under them as a large purple mole with a drill for a nose dug it's way though the cliff rock. "Tyrannomon!" A large dinosaur jumped off the cliff top. "Get them all!"

"Divide and conquer." Tai whispered to Sora, Matt and Izzy. They nodded.

Takato walked up behind them with a set of cards. All of them digi-metals. "Here. These might help." He fanned the cards, letting Tai, Sora and Izzy take the three.

"Yolei! Get Hawkmon! You and I will help Zoe." Sora told the lavender haired girl.

"What?" Yolei gasped, following Sora and Biyomon.

"Cody?" Izzy asked the young boy.

"Uh. Armadillomon?" Cody asked his partner.

"I'm up for it."

"Come on TK." Matt called to his brother. "Takato?"

"Guilmon?" Takato saw his partner growl at the ground.

"Davis, Kari, Blake? Let's deal with frosty over there." Tai called out to his sister, follower and acquaintance. Blake's only response was a sword appearing in his hand.

* * *

"Twin Sickle!" Zoe dodged the shock wave easily, the praying manias digimon might have been fast, but so was she. She remembered her group's confutation with a Snimon, JP wouldn't stop talking about it.

"Spiral Twister!"

"Feather Strike!"

Three attacks came right for Snimon, a green spiral, a fast feather and a sharp fan. He dodged all three, only for the fan to come back around and clip his wing, forcing him to the ground. The feather and fan came back to their owners. The digital insect charged at Zoe. She moved out of the way at the last minute, only for Snimon to turn slightly and Sora and Yolei to suddenly stand in the path of his blades. Sora's digi-vice began to glow and change.

"Sora!" "Yolei!"

Sora pulled the digi-vice from her hand. The Red bodied, blue grip digi-vice glowed with a symbol. "It is time."

A ring of fractal code appeared around her hand and Sora scanned it with the new digi-vice. "Exacute! Digivolution Activate!"

Biyomon was cocooned in fractal code, inside the rookie digimon's skin was stripped away and the wire frame that was left reshaped and new skin attached itself to the frame, leaving a large flaming bird flying out of the sphere.

As Sora's digi-vice changed, Yolei looked at the card Sora give her. It had a picture of a familiar digi-metal. The title declared it as Digi-metal of Wind. She swiped it. The digi-vice lit up as Hawkmon was enveloped in a bright light. He emerged from it as a gryphon like creature that reminded Yolei of a figure in Egyptian Mythology.

"Tempus wing!"

"Meteor wing!"

"Tempus Twister!"

A trio of attacks went straight for Snimon, overwhelming the control ring, causing it to shatter completely. The digimon shock away the pain in his head before getting a look at the three champion level digimon that surrounded it. Seeing that he was out numbered, he fled.

* * *

"Thunder Fist!"

"Super-shocker!"

"Diamond shell!"

Tyrannomon shock off the attacks and powered up one of his own. "Blaze Blast."

All three digimon scattered, Cody looked at his digi-vice and the card Izzy gave him. It had the Digi-metal of Thunder on it. He reflected on what JP said, learn from experance. He wondered what would come of swiping the card though his digi-vice. He did and Armadillomon began to glow.

Izzy watched the fight from the sidelines. JP's sprit evolution was powerful and skilled, but he was suited for close quarters combat, and his fists weren't doing a lot on Tyrannomon, but the shocks were doing more when he get hits in.

In his hand, Izzy's digi-vice reshaped and changed shape until it became a new model with a purple body with blue grips. The screen lit up with a symbol. "It is time."

A ring of fractal code appeared around Izzy's hand. He scanned it with his digi-vice.

Tentomon was cocooned in a shell of fractal code, undergoing a digi-volution that he never seen before. He was, between the gaps of fractal code, that Tentomon's skin tore away, left a wire frame that reformed, reshaped into a familiar shape and new skin began to reattach. Kabuterimon flew out of the sphere and fired off a ball of electricity from his horn, stunning the Tyrannomon.

"Gold Rush!"

A set of drills fire from where Armadillomon stood, one of them colliding with the ring and causing it to shatter.

* * *

Guilmon ran across the ground in no particular order or patten, looking for the Drimogemon and also confusing it. Suddenly he jumped just as the large mole burst out of the ground.

"Blue blaster!"

"Boom Bubble!"

A pair of attacks made the mole raise his feet in the air in an attempt to divert them.

"Crystal Breeze!" Kumamon froze the ground under Drimogemon and caused him to move uncontrollably across the ground.

Matt pulled the digi-vice from his pocket as it glowed, reshaped and became a new model. A symbol appeared on the screen. "It is time."

Without thinking, Matt scanned the fractal code that appeared around his hand with the digi-vice. Gabumon was encased in fractal code, his skin stripped away, the frame reshaped, and the new skin reattach. Garurumon leapt from the cocoon and slid across the ice skilfully.

"Howling blaster!" A blue flame shot from his mouth and shattered the mole's ring around his arm. Dazed, Drimogemon slammed into the cliff face.

* * *

"Execute! Digi-volution Activate!"

Tai summoned up the energy he felt when he made Agumon digi-volve. The familiar feeling of something burning conviction inside his heart intensified as Agumon went though the familiar process of digi-volving into Greymon. On the cliff above, The emperor aimed his digi-vice at the fractal code cocoon, but what ever the digi-vice did to prevent them from digi-volving, it wasn't working on Agumon.

Davis flipped the Digi-metal of Flames card in his fingers. He wanted to join in and Veemon was only too happy to try out armour digi-volving. One swipe of the card, Veemon glowed, reshaped and became a taller reptile with hot rod armour. Flamedramon. As a test of his element, he grabbed an icicle that was thrown at him, and turned it to steam in a second.

The emperor was less then pleased. Blake could almost hear him screaming.

"Nova blast!"

"Fire Rocket!"

"Pyro Tornato!"

The three fire digimon threw what they had at Mojiamon, holding him still. Blake took the chance, charged at the yeti digi-mon, summoned up his mana and sliced though the digimon's leg. The glowing blade cut though the control ring like it was warm butter. But the leg remained completely intact. Mojiamon fell dazed.

"They did it!" Kari cheered. Blake looked up… the Emperor had cut his losses and vanished.

On his digi-Pliot, psychic link tech from his world, Blake opened the bug's frequency. In his head, he could hear the emperor fuming.

"They digi-volved. How could they digi-volve!?" He heard. "How did they find a way around my black digi-vice? No matter. Once that old network is online, it won't matter."

Old Network? Blake questioned to himself.

"Sorry we had to be so rough on you." Agumon apologised to the former slaves of the emperor. They left peacefully, complaining about how badly the emperor treated them. Bokomon and Neemon had ran up to the group, after they watched the digimon walk off.

"Papamon?" Patamon asked suddenly. "Papamon!" He jumped off TK's head and

"I don't get it." Gabumon said. "How did we digi-volve? We were right under the Emperor's black digi-vice."

"When I digi-volved, I felt Sora's love enter my heart." Biyomon stated.

"Sounds cheesy. But I felt something come from Izzy, like a sense of absolute conviction." Tentomon said.

"Funny you should mention that but it's like I gathered up all my love for my friends and family and focused it." Sora thought.

"Strange." Blake muttered. All of this was beginning to sound very familiar.

JP produced his digi-vice. Izzy had his cradled in his hand. They looked similar to D-tectors now.

"Good. The suns going down. Now we can relax." Patamon stated.

"Why's that?" TK asked.

"The digimon emperor never appears at night." Gatomon informed them.

"Still, there's a first time for everything." Bokomon put forward. "Who's to say he won't wake up for a midnight conquering? It's probably safer if we stay together.

"Probably much safer if we leave the digital world all together." Takato added.

"Yes, well. Too bad digimon can't enter the human world." Bokomon shot down.

"Says who?" Most of the original digi-destine's partners demanded.

"I think you might be wrong about that." Takato said. "Remember the Odiaba fog incident?"

"You heard about that?" TK asked the younger boy.

"How could anyone forget." Takato said. "Then that whole other world appearing in the sky, fight with Apocalymon. And the fight with Diaboromon on the… Wait." He pointed to Agumon and Gabumon. "It was you guys."

"Excuse me Tai, but it is getting late." Agumon pointed out.

"Yeah. We should get home." Tai reminded them. "If we can." A thought crossed Tai's mind, looking at Takato. He was told on the way over here that Takato wasn't with either group originally when they arrived in the digital world. "How did you get here?"

"Uh. That way I think." Takato pointed towards a familiar looking forest. They started walking…

* * *

Mimi stretched as she waited for her bag, letting out a long yawn as she did. The time difference between New York and Tokyo was disorientating, let alone the flight between the two cities. To say that she didn't notice the long blue hair aspiring doctor was understandable, but when she did, it was a shock.

"Joe? What are…" She stammered.

"Great to see you too Mimi. We gotta go." He grabbed the pink haired girl's hand and nearly dragged her out of the airport, if only she didn't yell in his ear.

"At least let me get my luggage. What's going on?" She demanded.

"I think a digimon is going to appear there." He answered.

"What?" Mimi exclaimed. "Why didn't you just say so? There's my bag." She walked over to the suitcase grabbed it and walked back over with a playful grin on her face. "I've never known you to rush into things like this."

"Just don't want to be late."

"Really? Someone might think you've missed all of the fun."

* * *

In a cave some distance away, the clocked woman let out a painful breath of air as she hobbled inside. She knew she twisted her ankle. It didn't matter, not for the moment. She slipped a hand inside her robe and produced a black and silver digi-vice. The feel of it seemed alien to her, yet it felt right. Every time she looked at it, a sense of belonging washed over her. All she ever wanted was to belong.

From inside her robe, she produced another device, an iPhone. The screen lit up as she unlocked it. She typed out a text message, sent it and brought the device closer to her chest. Everything would soon be perfect. She couldn't help them directly, but she could still do something. Put them on the right path. Leave them the right clues. Nudge them in the right direction. She pulled both devices back into her clock then turned to two egg shaped metals that sat on a table high ledge. One black, one white…

"Hope and light." She muttered to herself. She picked them up and walked out of the digital world, slipping though one of the many holes in the barrier between it and it's connected earth.

* * *

Terran Fact - Molecular Compression: What we perceive as solid objects is mostly empty space. It has been put forward that it is possible to compress solid objects for storage, the same way black holes crush entire solar systems, only the process is reversible. A similar idea exists in Japanese popular culture, Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball.

Mesoamerican Fact - Step Pyramids: The ancient Egyptians weren't the only ancient culture to build pyramids, though some of these structures were also used as a place of interment for rulers. The largest pyramid in central america is the La Denta Temple, reaching 79 metres high (260 ft).


	4. Revenge Gets You Nowhere

**Chapter three: Revenge gets you Nowhere**

"The stars are beautiful tonight."

"Not a beautiful as you."

"Oh you."

In Shinjuku, night has already fallen over the ward that sat in the heart of Tokyo. On one of the main paths, among the lush forage that began to grow back over the spring, a teenage couple enjoyed each other's company. It was intuited by a loud bang and fog filling the area.

"What's that?"

"Uh. The northern lights?"

Running towards the fog, a red haired girl mentally demanded her partner to get in gear. On the other side of the fog, a humanoid dragon and a dark skinned human set up a device that would lock anything inside the fog. But something was waiting inside…

* * *

"Remind me again why you are subjecting me to this torture." Jamie asked as she walked into a local bakery.

"Because you still lack one cultural study this year." Joey reminded her. "And you can't just read the guide book. You've got to throw yourself in the deep end. Eat the food, mistake corner for card and… what was my point again?"

"If it is anything like the commonwealth wide curriculum, you want me to learn the culture, history and lifestyle of a terran community that I am not already accustomed to. Why you made me chose Isolationist Japan is beyond me, as is your idea of visiting one in a parallel universe. Why couldn't we just visit Japan on Terra. The fact that it is floating above the planet is not a problem."

"This is more fun. And these guys have better Manga. Now lets hurry up and get something to eat. I'm starving."

Jamie pinched the bridge of her nose, silently cursing her ancestors for tormenting her with this human. He was tolerable when he was in front of a computer, but any other time, it was like dealing with a salamander on a sugar high, darting this way and that. The sun elven mage, dressed in what the locals thought was stylish, a yellow sleeveless hoodie with short brown jeans that showed off more of her legs then she would have liked, long socks that made it past her knees and a pair of fingerless gloves. Her long brown hair did well to cover her ears, but figured that no one would care if they did see. Joey on the other hand was wearing a brown button up shirt with a Godzilla undershirt and a pair of shorts that stopped just below the knee. The dark skinned aboriginal boy opted to wear a pair of googles around his head.

"May I ask, why a bread shop? It is the steeple food of any culture."

"Start off simple. Hey Cream Puffs!"

"I am beginning to think that metal of yours has interfered with your brain." She muttered walking up to the register with her selected sandwich.

"You two enjoying the sights?" The attendant asked, a man with light red eyes asked.

"As much as one can." Jamie answered handing him the money. "What would you recommend? I had hoped to watch the cherry blossoms but we may be too early."

"Actuarially, they bloomed just last week. I know there are a few cherry blossom trees in the park if you want to see them tonight."

"But it is April. Cherry Blossoms are not going to be in bloom until late October." Jamie pointed out, easily forgetting the differences between Terra and this earth's meteorological quarks. "Never the less, a night time stroll might do my friend the world of good. Thank you Mr…"

"Matsuki." He answered.

"Come along Par…" She smelt something… smoke?

"Bada boom!"

"Thank you." She said to the attendant, ran out side to see a puppy run by yelping, tail smouldering. She then looked at what it was running from, a small, pudgy little imp wearing a red bandana.

"What are you looking at?!" The imp demanded creating a flame on his finger tip and throwing it at the mage. Big mistake. Jamie caught it in her hand, let the flame snuff itself out and then turned to the stunned imp.

"Someone who is about to get a taste of what he paid for." She opened her hand, creating a fire ball about ten times the size of the one that was thrown at her and threw it at the little puppy kicker, intentionally missing him. But he didn't know that. He turned and ran, screaming while Jamie chuckled.

"You okay?" Joey asked the girl.

"Satisfied. I hope you got two cream puffs."

* * *

"I can't believe you decided to pick a fight with that mutt."

"Hey! After what he tried to do to the village, I had to do something."

Rika pulled off her sunglasses, spying a thin looking dog with a spiked collar standing over a pair of Toucanmon. A yellow humanoid fox with icy blue eyes, wearing purple sleeves around her wrists followed the girl though.

"Renamon." The girl said simply.

"I'm on it." The fox assured her as the dog turned to Rika, no longer caring about the two amour digimon. She identified it from the card she hand in her hand immediately as the digital birds ran off, she found herself not caring.

"Dobermon. Lets see… grey hound digimon, he's got a Black Beam attack…" She found something that interested her. "A champion level. Now that's a challenge. Walk all over him Renamon."

"He's toast." Renamon began to attack, kicking the dog in it's side, causing him to roll into the fence. The fox digimon leaped into the air and crossed her arms, a collection of glowing crystals appeared abound her and made an attempt to hit the dog, only he ran off before the crystals hit him. The dog charged at the fox. "He's too nimble Rika."

"I noticed." She produced a card from her pouched, the speed card. "This will do." She swiped the card though the D-Power.

Renamon prepared her attack again. Dobermon glowed red, then reshaped.

"Emerald Blaze!" Renamon was burnt by a jet of green fire that came out of the light. The red light died away and reviled a new digimon, a larger black dog with white hair, a long blade extending from each knuckle of each toe and a pair of heads for shoulder guards.

"He digi-volved?" Rika gasped, recognising the digimon as Cerberumon. "But how?"

"Where is he?" The dog growled at the girl.

"Rika!" Renamon ran towards the hell hound, only to get slashed by dog's claws.

"Stay out of this rookie." Cerberumon growled at Renamon before turning to Rika. "The warrior of flame? Where does he live?"

"I… I…" Rika stuttered. She faced a number of digimon with Renamon, but this was the first time Renamon lost and she was at the mercy of the other digimon.

Cerberumon walked closer… then smelt something familiar. "He's here." He growled. He leaped over Rika, making her fall to the ground, claws raised. "Styz Killer!" He cut though the fog and was gone. Rika fell to the ground, shaking in fear and from the lack of adrenaline. She didn't know how long she was there. Long enough for the fog to disappear.

"You okay?" Rika looked up to a young boy her age, black hair, tied back into a pony tail, under a striped black and blue bandana. Rika was momentarily lost in his deep blue eyes, like… She snapped out of her thoughts.

"Get away from me." She ran from the scene leaving the boy both confused and insulted in the torn up baseball field

"Your welcome!" Koji yelled then sighed as he wandered towards the west side of the part. "What was her problem anyway?" He muttered to himself as he fiddled with his digi-vice. When they flew into their hands, both brothers felt joy and anxiety that came with it. Koji wouldn't admit it in front of everyone, but he did miss those days in the digital world, though nearly losing Koichi after they found each other was a difficult idea to accept.

He turned back to where the red haired girl ran off to. There was something about her Koji found familiar,

* * *

Koichi himself wasn't having much luck, black and grey digi-vice in hand. A series of repetitive beeps lead him this way and that but the only common place it lead him to was a pond. Some movement in the water, and some in the bushes, nothing he thought worth looking into. He gave up and sat down on a park bench.

"Why would you want to watch Cherry Blossoms?" A voice demanded speaking in english, male, heavy with a southern accent… no. Somewhere else. Where?

"The same reason you behead zombies on the box." Another voice, female, greek? "It relaxes me. It also reminds me of the spring Festiables back in the Azure Fields. Though the field of sky blue and cotton white flowers is a luxury."

"I'm sending another long winded story about your old home. They never get old. Remember our little joint project?"

"How can I forget? Living code. Programs that evolve and adapt."

"Too bad the collage shut the project down. I would have loved to… I've been wondering, why did you yell at that guy?"

"Just something about him…" The girl started before trailing off. "Something… empty."

Koichi frowned. Strange choice of word to use as an adjective. Stranger still, he knew that she was describing the kind of darkness that was affiliated to Duskmon. A cold shiver made its way down his spine, like remembering an old nightmare.

"I am going to wander for a little while. This way, you will not need to follow me." The girl said.

"Fine. Lets meet at the train station before finding a bed for the night."

"Agreed."

The woman walked down the path towards Koichi. Bright blue eyes, long brown hair, a proud but humble air, and there was a sensation, like air, fire and light danced around around her, and a crackle of static followed in her footsteps. She passed Koichi but he swore that she shot a glance at him for a moment, and winked. He was about to follow her when a second pair of voices caught his attention.

"Run!"

"What do you think I'm doing?! Is he still behind us!?"

"I think he's given up." Koichi saw a pair of Toucanmon catch their breath on the cobblestone path. "Why'd you have to go pick a fight with that mutt?"

"It was a lot better then your idea. Jumping into that purple swirly thing, he wouldn't be crazy to follow us in to… where ever it is we are. Where are we anyway?"

"Why are you asking me? Why didn't you ask that human with the…"

"HUMAN!" They both exclaimed before faintly looking around and eyes meeting Koichi's.

"Yep. We're in the human world." One of them said.

"Guess we better find a village, or tracks or something. Hey!" The other called to Koichi. "I remember you. Your one of the legendary warriors."

"Yeah. We never got a chance to thank you for what you did for us."

"Leaving without saying good bye. So where are we anyway?"

Koichi just couldn't say, he stood their with his mouth hanging open, unaware of the shadow walking up behind him.

* * *

"Are you sure here?" Mimi asked, silently thanking herself for forgoing the ultra stylish high heals for stylish yet practical foot ware for the flight over.

"Well, she did say Shinjuku park." Joe answered as they walked towards the pond. "Not that she…"

"It's going to swallow our brains!" They heard a high pitch scream.

"Don't let it do it! I need what little brain I have!" Another scream, deeper, just as frightened. Both the aspiring doctor and fashion icon watched in confusion as an adolescent couple ran past them in a panic.

"You don't think…" Mimi asked only to be interrupted by their digi-vices beeping.

"Well, there's only one way to find out." Joe answered pointing towards the pond where the signal was coming from. They walked towards it, Mimi staying near the bushes and Joe drawing on what courage he would muster to edge closer to the pond. A pair of eyes looked back at Joe while the bushes shuffled next to Mimi. She let out a high pitched scream, heard by two boys as something white leapt out of the water yelling his name as a green plant ran out of the bushes, hugging the pink haired girl's leg.

"You miss me?" The playful white seal digimon asked. The half shocked digidestine gave a smile at his partner's old antics and rubbed his head.

"Have I ever."

"I made you a flower crown Mimi!" Palmon exclaimed, showing her partner the ring of daises she made which the girl was happy to accept.

"How'd you two even get here?" Joe asked, genuinely curious of how their partners got out of the digital world.

"It's the strangest thing. We were running for our lives then out of nowhere, there was this blinding purple light and we found ourselves here." Gomamon stated.

"What do you mean you were running for your lives?" Mimi asked, now very concerned, not only for her partner, but for the digital world in general, and the idea that she was going to miss her massage.

"This human has been making digimon his slaves for some time now." Palmon informed her. "We saw him forcing a village of Gazimon to build a large tower on the hill over their village."

"Why would he…"

"What's going on here?!" They heard a voice call out. Both digimon knew that humans shouldn't see them or they might get the wrong idea, so both retreated into the water or bushes, just as a dark skinned fifteen year old ran into the clearing. "Who screamed?"

"Uh. Sorry… I… thought I saw a spider." Mimi said trying to explain away the sound.

"You sure?" The boy asked turning to Joe. "This bloke an't trying anything funny is he?"

"What?!" Joe yelled, suddenly feeling like he should be insulted by the remark.

"What make's you say that?" Mimi asked.

"Just making sure." The boy said. "I don't want to see this lovely sheila be the victim of a bluey that got out of hand."

Both digi-destine raised an eyebrow. Sure, he was speaking japanese, but they couldn't understand the english words that ended up in his declaration. They spent a good while staring at the boy before another, a black haired, bandana wearing boy arrived.

"Is everything okay here?" He asked.

"We're fine. Really." Joe told both of them as another pair of voices came screaming and a pair of toucans ended up into the pond. The bandana wearing boy knew who they were off the bat.

"What are they doing here?" He asked as a white seal surfaced. "And you?"

"Me?" Gomamon asked. "What about those chickens?" One of the Toucans surfaced and spoke.

"You would too if one of the humans got attacked by a guy with a lot of eyeballs."

"What!?" The bandana wearing boy yelled, then heard beeping. The dark skinned boy produced a laptop from his bag, one Joe knew very well.

"Isn't that Izzy's laptop?" He asked as the boy opened it. Mimi walked up to the laptop and let out a sudden squeak. "What is it?" Humans began to gather around the laptop as digi-destine and digimon began to pour out, causing a pile up of humans and a smashing sound, much to the amusement of the digimon. Two wisps, one white, one purple escaped Blake's backpack, one flew into the bandana wearing boy's chest while the other flew in the direction the toucans came from.

"Get off! Your crushing my cream puffs!"

"That's not all they crushed."

Koji didn't wait around for anything. The moment he felt the wisp impact his chest, the moment he felt himself fuse with Lobomon's spirt, he sprinted off, running after the sprit of darkness, knowing full well were it would end up.

"Hey!" Gomamon yelled, as he, Joe, Mimi and Palmon gave chase.

"Was that Koji?" One of the boys in the pile moaned, a brunet boy wearing a light brown cap and googles.

"I think so." Another boy answered, a spiky brown haired boy wearing a blue jumpsuit.

"Guilmon? What's wrong boy?"

* * *

Whack!

"Koichi."

Whack!

"Koichi."

Whack!

The older twin inhaled and exhaled short breaths, unwilling to let Duskmon find him as he cowered behind the tree. The false warrior of darkness kept hitting random trees with his twin swords in an attempt to find him.

"Koichi."

Smash!

Duskmon roared in pain as Koichi felt something pull him deeper into the clearing, a hand dragging him by his shirt. What ever it was stopped pulling by his shirt, grabbed his hand and pulled him down, and pressed a finger to his lips. He saw who it was, the teenage girl that passed him before. She turned back, trying to spot Duskmon,She missed the wisp of purple light flying towards him and impacting with his chest. A sigh of relief went though him as he felt Loweemon's sprit fuse with his own, an old friend fighting by his side again. He wasn't the only one to notice. The girl turned to him with questioning eyes, and Duskmon shouted his name.

"Duskmon!" The girl shouted as she stood up. Koichi watched as she produced a silver rod from her pocket, it extended into a two meter long staff. She placed an end of it on the ground, just as Duskmon charged at them. Koichi flinched when the sound of glass reached his ears, a wall of light preventing the red blade from getting within ten inches of the girl's head.

She opened her eyes, after focusing her energy in creating the shield, her deep blues meet his crimson red. She momently took pleasure in the pain she caused him by throwing an elixir at him and hoped it would stay with him for his brief existence.

"Sinka ta'ir. Astara kaira wia nemom teua." She said. Koichi didn't recognise the language and didn't understand what she was saying. By the looks of it, neither did Duskmon, but he understood the venom in her words. "You might not understand them but those words still hold weight. You targeted this child, what do you want with him? Answer!"

Both Koichi and Duskmon were taken back by the girls tone. It wasn't because she was unafraid, it was more like she was acting superior to him. Duskmon laughed.

"Fine. You can answer to him."

"Howling Laser!" A bullet of light hit Duskmon in the back, causing him to cry out in pain. He turned and Koichi could see a tall figure with a wolf's mask and a long purple and blue scarf, much like the color theme of his armour. Lobomon. Koichi, in turned pulled the digi-vice from his pocket, created the fractal code around his hand and scanned it, becoming encased with both shadows and factual code before another tall figure leapt out smashed though the girl's shield, grabbed a spear out of thin air, and stuck Duskmon with it.

Another sword appeared in Duskmon's hand and he attempts to rush the wolf warrior.

"Poison Ivy!" Instead, vines were thrown out and hindered the false warrior of darkness attempt to attack by wrapping around his legs.

"Sharp Claw!" A small seal leapt at the tangled warrior and slashed at the armour, but did little damage. Duskmon just push those little annoyances aside but Lobomon wasn't going to let the opening go unclaimed. Charging at Duskmon with the sabres.

"How are you here?" Koji demanded.

"Doubt is a funny thing." Duskmon answered he blocked a rush from Loweemon. "How it can corrupt hope and twist it." With a sudden movement, both warriors tumbled into each other as Duskmon vanished and reappeared above them.

Two kids made it to the battle field intime to hear the statement, but nether couldn't stop to think about it as their digi-vices began to glow and change. They looked down to they that the devices that connected them to their partners had been replaced by larger devices with a new color theme. Joe's was dark grey with blue handles, Mimi's was now green with red handles. Both lit up and said three words.

"It is time."

Before they knew it, they scanned a ring of fractal code that appeared around their hand, their convictions, their hopes, their concerns fuelled their partners as they began to digivolve, cocooned in fractal code and emerged at their champion levels.

"Needle Spray!"

"Harpoon Torpedo!"

Both attacks hit Duskmon, causing him to faultier for a moment and stumble back. He found four champion level digimon standing against him. He reached out to the source of doubt, but found his connection cut off. With no other option, he retreated, fading into darkness and then into nothing, leaving the digimon to return to their rookie stages or human forms. Before either Mimi or Joe could ask, a large red digimon ran into their line of sight, followed by digi-destine and digimon.

"What happened?" Someone demanded, a brown haired boy in a black leather coat.

"Who are you?" Koji demanded.

"Just answer the question, we'll get to that later."

"It's gone Takatomon." The dinosaur said.

"What's gone?" The boy asked.

"Duskmon." The girl with the staff said. A look of relation went though four of the humans faces. "Explanations are paramount but we have yet to introduce ourselves."

"The girl is right." Bokomon said, standing in the centre. He looked towards the twins, the look in their eyes told him that the warriors of Light and Darkness had found their human partners. Bokomon looked at the two apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't give you the chance to refuse. Let's take a seat and we better talk." Everyone did as the wise digimon advised them, all of them sitting in a circle, digimon with their human partners. Mimi couldn't help but notice that Kari was sitting by one of the new boy's sides, the one wearing the brown hat, as well as Sora sitting closer to Matt's side then before. She was also aware of the blonde girl and the boy in the jumpsuit sitting closer together then the others. Tai on the other hand, took the lead and spoke up.

"Well I'm Tai Kamiya, and this is Agumon." He said, starting with himself and his partner, who waved a claw and gave a goofy, no worries smile. Koji rose an eyebrow at this, obviously a more mature version of Takuya. Tommy for the length of time he's known Tai thought he was the brotherly type, a lot like Takuya. He wondered if the googles had anything to do with it.

"This is Sora and Biyomon." Tai continued to introduce his friends and fellow former crest holders.

"It's nice to meet you all." Sora said, mostly to the two boy's she didn't know. Yolei expected the half withdrawn greeting. Zoe felt for the girl, and identified a true friend since they meet. On the walk though the digital world back home, she had talked about her mom and they had talked extensively on the topic of boys. The half italian girl knew that the red head had feelings for the blond rock star.

"Our resident rock star Matt and Gabumon."

"Hey." Was all the blond said. Takuya noticed that the greeting was genuine, cool, almost like Koji in his own way. Yolei nearly fell over, now releasing where she knew the boy from. The band teenage wolves. Her big sister wouldn't stop talking about it. Davis glared at the blonde. Many a good night was ruined thanks to him and Jun's obsession.

"His brother, TK and Patamon."

"Don't worry. I'm taller then I look." TK said, greeting them with something he recalled greeting the digimon when the first went to their world. This got a chuckle from anyone who got the inside joke. Koichi remembered TK well, but he couldn't help catch the glance of uncertainty in his eyes. Takato was confused at first but wondered if it was said earlier. Koji's eyes then widened at the realisation. This was the infamous TK, and the other legendary warriors had noticed the hamakari around his partner, and asked themselves if he was the same patamon that they traveled with.

"Fresh from america, Mimi and Palmon."

"Hi there." Mimi gave the unknown children her best smile. Blake swallowed unnerved, mostly by the color of her hair. He found bright shades of pink a very alien and unnatural color. Zoe was taken aback by the bubbly girl's personality, comparing it to Ranamon's, but there was something genuine about her smile.

"Our aspiring doctor, Joe and Gomamon."

"You two okay by the way? That fight looked brutal." Joe asked the twins. JP knew that was the doctor to be talking, but it was genuine concern, the kind of guy that was alway there when you needed him without fail. Cody related to the question while giving his partner's shell a rub, wondering if this fighting was necessary.

"And technical support, Izzy and Tentomon." Tai said, indicating the second last member of the group.

"A pleasure, I'm sure." Izzy greeted. Joey knew that the boy was protective about his gadgets, the way he collected his pineapple proved it, but he also possessed a curiosity and a set of ethics that a close friend of his had. He knew that they would get along without a problem.

"I'm Kari and this is my partner Gatomon." The girl between the google heads introduced herself and the glove wearing cat in her lap. Zoe had a feeling that the girl had a thing for Takuya, either it was that boyish charm or the slight resemblance to her brother. Koichi was drawn to the girl for some reason, but something told him it was because of her partner.

"That's Yolei and her patner, Hawkmon."

"Charmed." Hawkmon greeted, bowing.

"Nice to meet ya." Yolei added. Mimi thought the girl was perky and full of energy, ready to take on anything, the very foundation of a digi-destine. Takato was reminded of a girl in his class. All she needed was to be three years younger, a sock puppet, and that would be the perfect image.

"Cody and his partner Armadillomon."

"Hello." Cody bowed. Jamie smiled at the boy's discipline and politeness, along with a focus and serious attitude, reminding her of young apprentice mages back on Terra with the same attitude. Tommy first thought it was cool to have a boy his age in the group, but wondered if the two would even get along.

"And that's Davis and his partner Veemon." She went on, pointing out the younger kids.

"Yeah but you can call me… Davis." The younger google head made a blunder in introducing himself. Koji sighed, a new Takuya. He hoped this one would be easier to get though to, but he doubt it. Koichi on the other hand chuckled at the boy's antics. Blake knew this boy was going to be difficult, thickheaded, and there was a less then subtle attraction towards the oldest google head's sister, who was closer to the warrior of flame.

"I think we meet your sister today." TK pointed out.

"Oh yeah. So what?" Davis said, obviously sour.

"Continuing on." Blake said before the scene evolved into something brutal. "I'm Blake." Tai took a quick note of the kid, obviously leader material, and obviously seen some bad things. Koichi felt a darkness from the older boy, and something else, burning beside his heart.

"And we have Joey Parker, video game extremist and technical support to the stars."

"G'day mates." Joey waved and smiled. Takuya brightened at the introduction, maybe he's know a thing or two about donkey madness. Joe looked the boy over and noticed that he was rubbing a point of his arm where it was discolored and rubbery. He thought it was a skin problem at first.

"And Magister Jan'ti Sw'et, our resident expert in the aetherial, magical and otherwise not explained in science."

"A pleasure." Jamie said nodding. Izzy raised an eyebrow. There was no scientific proof that magic even existed, but if what he heard was true, it might exist somewhere outside the confides of their world and the digital one. Koichi was then well aware how that shield existed, the strange manor and the aura that she presented. Kari looked the girl over, noticing traits that marked her out as something other then human.

"Well, I'm Takuya, my partner is the warrior of flame, Agunimon." Takuya introduced. Tai looked at the brunet with a hint of amusement, reminded of himself in ways. Davis immediately felt threatened by the boy, but otherwise felt he could find some common ground with him.

"Zoe, and her partner Kazumon, warrior of wind."

"Ciao. Come state?" Zoe greeted. Yolei smiled at the blond girl's greeting, showing off her heritage. She wondered what kinds of foods she tried in Italy, what she grew up around. Sora wondered if she felt lonely being the only girl in the group. She thought about getting Mimi to stay longer, plan a little shopping trip around Shibuya.

"Tyke in the orange hat is Tommy, his partner is Kumamon, warrior of ice."

"Nice to meet all of you." Tommy greeted. Cody nodded, wondering how the two would get along, considering they were the same age. He did get the feeling that the young boy was bullied before but had been solved long ago. Matt was reminded of his little brother at his age, so full of energy and curiosity, he was glad that he won't be chasing after this one. He noticed that Tommy looked up to Takuya.

"And the talented JP with his warrior, Beetlemon of thunder."

"And for my first trick…" JP produced a coin from behind Tommy's ear. Jamie was entertained by the illusion, no magic trick, but she did appreciate a fellow illusionist. TK couldn't help but chuckle at the boy's antics. Obviously really good friends, but was there an underlying pang of guilt?

"The one with the bandana is Koji."

Koji just nodded. Matt knew the younger twin meant no offence, he had a feeling that his friendship with Takuya was almost like his friendship with Tai, a lot of clashed topics, some fighting, mostly with each other. Sora noticed how protective he was of his twin, like one of their digimon was about to attack them.

"And his supposed older of the yin and yang twins, Koichi."

"Hi." Koichi struck Jamie as the shy and withdrawn type who's opened up more. Matt had heard of Koichi several times before, smart, cheerful, but had withdrawn a year ago when he got into that private junior high school. TK thought it was strange now, seeing the two brothers together. Darkness and Light. Good and Evil in his mind but… there was no way Koichi was evil, was there. He made a note to read the rest of Bokomon's book, the only way he'd know for sure is that he read the whole thing for himself.

"Yin and yang?" Blake asked. "Interesting term. Both polar opposites but incomplete without each other. Like, passive and withdrawn darkness and aggressive and unrelenting light."

"You could say that. Their partners are Lobomon, warrior of light, and Loweemon, warrior of darkness." Takuya went on, the air suddenly went still. Half of the original digi-destine froze, all except for Kari, TK, Mimi and Joe. While the others knew, Kari didn't see the problem, but she could see the conflict it could cause. They turned to TK, expecting an outburst, but what surprised them was confusion.

"I thought Duskmon was the warrior of darkness." TK said which in turn made the warriors froze.

"Just how far into my book are you?" Bokomon asked.

"Half way."

"I'm going to have to spoil it for you. Duskmon is the corrupted warrior of darkness while Loweemon is the true warrior of darkness."

"That's Bokomon by the way, and the yellow rabbit sleeping is Neemon." Takuya pointed out, everyone had now noticed that the rabbit had taken the opportunity to dose off along with the Toucanmon. "Those guys stole our D-tecters and sold them in the Autumn Leaf Fair thingy. Long story. And last…" Takuya turned to the last brunet with the red dinosaur.

"I'm Takato, and this is Guimon." Takato introduced, scratching his partner behind a bat like ear.

"I don't think I've ever seen a digimon quite like him." Tai pointed out.

"Yes. I don't think I've ever seen him before." Bokomon said, going though his book once more. "He's quite docile and gentle for a virus attribute."

"Yeah, I created him." Izzy raised an eyebrow at the statement while Bokomon and the warriors had similar expressions of shock and disbelief.

"You created your digimon?" JP questioned.

"Yeah. Kinda by accident. Some drawings of him went though the digi-vice's card reader." Takato explained. "Why?"

"It doesn't surprise me that Guimon is a virus digimon now. The last time someone created a digimon, it was infected with a virus and caused a lot of havoc." Izzy informed them.

"The diablomon thing right?" Tommy said.

"Yeah. We took care of it with Omnimon before Odaiba was blown up, thankfully." Matt reminded them.

"That was you guys?" Koji asked, remembering the fight three years ago.

"Anyway, not important now." Bokomon said then added "Though I'd love to hear more about it." He turned to the twins and asked "What did you mean by Duskmon attacked you? We both know that's impossible."

"All he said was 'Doubt is a funny thing. How it can corrupt hope and twist it.' I fail to understand what he is talking about." Jamie answered. "I did sense that he was feeding off someone."

TK brought his knees closer to his chest, fully aware of what Jamie had said. Doubt. His hated for the powers of darkness and his friend's realisation to it had poisoned their friendship. Matt noticed his brother's discomfort but didn't bring it up.

"Could he have found his way into the human would like all the other digimon?"Koichi asked.

"What digimon?" Agumon asked. Koichi pulled the printouts from his bag and handed them to Tai. One of the Toucanmon stirred from his sleep just in time to see the shape of the yellow fox on the paper.

"Hey! That's the fox that attacked Dobermon!" He yelled.

"Dobermon?" Bokomon questioned.

"Yeah. Eversince he digivolved, he's been trying to find a way into the human world to get revenge on one of the warriors." Takuya didn't need hear anything more, he just knee Cerberumon was after him.

"I need to go." Takuya said to ran off but was stopped by Kari.

"Why don't we exchange numbers first. That way we can stay in contact with each other." She suggested. A sly smile appeared on Mimi's face while Davis was shocked at the forwardness of the girl.

"I'll get them from Koji tomorrow. Right now, I need to find Cerberumon before he causes any more trouble."

"Then I'll come with you." She suggested standing. "You might need backup and Tai can send me any numbers I don't have." Takuya knew there was no arguing but ran off anyway, Kari and Gatomon in tow. Davis made an attempt to follow her but TK stopped him.

"Let me go TP." Davis hissed.

"Stay." Yolei scolded, pulling the boy back down. "So where did these photo's come from?"

"A blog by the Digimon Queen." Koichi answered. "The thing is, Renamon is in all of them."

"Maybe Renamon has a human partner too." Patamon suggested.

"Well, there was this red haired girl, wearing a shirt with a broken heart." The still awake Toucanmon stated. Koji found the description familiar.

"I saw that girl only fifteen minutes ago, but there wasn't any digimon in sight." Koji told them.

"Well, she is known for blending into the shadows, I'm not surprised you didn't see her." Bokomon informed them.

"How are these digimon getting though?" Sora asked, stocking Biyomon's feathers with the back of her hand.

"If the barrier between worlds is thin enough, it wouldn't take much effort." Blake answered. "Find a soft spot, trip over something, all of a sudden, you trying wrap your head around a different structure of physics all together."

"And with this Digimon Emperor guy running around, I don't see this letting up anytime soon." JP spoke up.

"Digimon Emperor?" Koichi asked.

"Mean human who's enslaving digimon and building strange towers." Mimi answered.

"Strange towers?" Everyone but Mimi, Joe, Koji, Koichi and the digimon asked.

"Now that I think about it, he was building these obelisks all over the digital world. Control spires." Gabumon answered.

"Might have something to do with those rings." TK put forward. Blake fished out the control ring he picked up from his bag and handed it to Joey.

"That thing gives me the creeps just looking at it." Mimi shivered.

"There's a dark power coming from it." Koichi pointed out. "I don't like it. Anything that can control anyone against their will isn't a good thing to have around." TK nodded agreeing the his childhood friend.

"What about you guys?" Tai asked, turning to Blake, Jamie and Joey.

"Well, that part is rather completed." Blake said out loud. "I'm actuarially surprised to see them here." He pointed to his friends.

"Where are you guys from?" Zoe asked.

"That's the completed part love." Joey said leaning back. "Easy part, we're from Sydney, Australia. Complicated part, not your version." He leaned forward. "Lets say time is like a tree where events cause it to branch out. The easiest way to look at it is we're from another branch. Another earth that's been subjected to a different history."

Izzy was deep in thought. "So what your saying is that your from one of these parallel timelines."

"Why do these… timelines branch out?" JP asked.

"Ever had a moment where you can't decide what to have to eat when you order out?" Blake asked. "History has those moments, when two outcomes are equally probable. The best example for this is a coin. Two sides, in theory, fifty fifty, it's just as likely to come up heads as it would tails. In reality one side might be slightly heavier then the other so it's not really fifty fifty, just the closest we get to it. If it was, both outcomes would occur by history branching off. One heads, one tails and both will be subjected to their own outcomes, like in the heads timeline, you win the lottery, in the tails, different numbers are drawn and you don't."

"So what your saying is that different timelines won't likely have the same outcome despite being from the same common past." Izzy suggested. Blake nodded.

"The ones that branch off during the late cold war era are more or less the same for now. It's when you get further out that things start to get complicated." Blake continued. "There's one where the Roman Empire still exists, another where the south won the civil war in america…"

"What's your earth like?" Yolei interrupted.

"It is…" Jamie began, trying to muster up describing her new home them. She couldn't.

"I guess the best way to describe it is as something you would see in a science fiction feature, a mix between technological mega cities with contemporary lifestyle, and some hellish dangers caused by both science and magic."

"It can't be actuarial magic." Izzy pointed out.

"It is a different kind of science." Jamie defended. "Like math, find the right string of numbers and you spit the atom, code computers, unravel ancient mysteries. I focus my energy, use the right symbols, say the correct words, and I rewrite the laws of physics. The arcane arts simply obeys their own rules and at best, unpredictable."

"Besides, in some dimensions, your laptop wouldn't even function." Blake added. "Some realities have laws where energy can't be converted, just created and destroyed. The digital world is a good example of altered laws. How else could data be represented at matter and energy?"

"And the technology?" Izzy asked while one thought went though everyone's head.

"That we'll have plenty of time for later." Joey said. "Jamie and I have some local phones, should we start exchanging?"

"I think we better. It's getting late." Sora reminded them.

"Looks like we've got a lot ahead of us." JP moaned.

"At least there's a lot more of us." Tai pointed out.

"And those new digi-vices seem to help even the playing field." Izzy contiuned. "The emperor's Black Digi-vice seems to emit some signal to keep digimon from evolving and these things deliver some sort of energy from us to help them obtain their champion levels."

"What sort of energy?" Jamie asked. This sounded very familiar.

"We're not sure." Tentomon answered for his partner.

"It's weird, but Takuya thought that the powers of the legendary warriors didn't just come from their sprits." Koji said out loud. "Or the elements they represent. Something about the power coming from our hearts."

"Sounds like our crests after Apocalypsmon destroyed them." Sora pointed out.

"And one element of our ability to control mana." Jamie added, taking Blake's out of his pocket. "Only your… digi-vices act as focusing points, like crystals, wands, staffs, symbols and the list goes on."

"Don't let her bore you with the lecture." Blake insisted. "She tends to go on herself."

"What are we going to do with those guys." She pointed to the Toucanmon, Neemon and Bokomon, taking no notice of Blake's remark about her ability to teach. When she pointed, she accidentally pushed a button on the digi-vice and one of the Toucanmon was sucked in.

"Hey! I can't see anything!" The Toucanmon's voice yelled. Jamie stared at the device in shock until Blake took it out of her hand and let the Toucanmon out.

"What was it like in there?" Patamon asked the released Toucanmon.

"Surprisingly roomy."

"I'll take Neemon with me. My house isn't far from here." Tommy announced.

"My parents are in Italy for the next few days. I'll take Bokomon, and the Toucanmon until we can decide what to do with them." Zoe assured them.

"Good point. Doesn't seem safe for them with that emperor guy running around." Joe pointed out.

"And I'd like to take Bokomon with me tonight. There are a few things about sprit evolution I'd like to know about." Izzy stated.

"I'll answer all I can." Bokomon assured him. "Just as long as I don't get pulled into that device."

"Well, we should meet up tomorrow and discuss our next move." Tai continued.

"Why not here, after school?" Takato proposed. "We can send a group into the digital world to scout out the situation though the laptop and another can patrol for any rouge digimon."

"I second the motion." Jamie agreed.

"It seems logical." Izzy agreed.

"Well we can't leave them running around in the human world." Koji agreed.

"Just aslong as I get to Kendo practice in time." Cody answered.

"Same here with boxing." JP added.

"And here with band practice." Matt nodded.

"Four o'clock good for everyone?" Yolei asked. With no objects, the kids began to walk home, and digimon feeling nervous about their first time inside digi-vices.

"Bokomon." Koji started. "What did you mean the chance to refuse?"

Izzy looked at the little white scholar digimon with sympathetic eyes. Takuya, Zoe, JP and Tommy had the choose to save their partners. Koichi was in danger and Koji was just aiding his brother, and both needed their partner's powers to help them.

"When your partners came to you, they didn't have a physical form anymore, and in order for them to live on now, they needed a new physical form." Bokomon explained. "Their fractal codes are now fused with your… what was it? Genetics?" He directed the question to Izzy.

"What your trying to say now is that…" Koji got most of what Bokomon was saying. "Half digimon. Both of us." It wasn't so hard to accept for either of them really. Fighting as their warriors, using their power, strength, and skills… "What would have happened if we did refuse?"

"Outside the spheres, they wouldn't last long. Inside, six weeks in the human world, maybe more in the digital world." Bokomon finished.

"And…"

"Yes."

Koji nodded resolute as the group got to the train station. Even if he had the chance, he wouldn't refuse.

"See ya Shinya!"

"Bye!" The boy called out as he left the basketball court, ball under arm. The ten year old wasn't concerned with a lot. Just reminding himself that it was his birthday next week. He wondered what his parents had bought him for the occasion. Last year he wanted a forklift. Didn't get it but he did get a toy car set and a few great digimon cards. Takuya left the house for a few hours and came back…

The ten year old stopped suddenly, now deep in thought. His older brother, coming back from his two hour absence, seemed different. He had yet to apply the older and wiser part to the equation, but he knew they were fighting less, and Takuya had new friends. Not from school either, when he talked to Tommy, the boy his age when they came around, he came from Shinjuku. He heard Zoe came from Shibuya, JP from A Koji further south and Koichi lived in Minato. He pressed Tommy for more details on how they meet but he remained tight lipped.

Now that he thought about it… Shinya knew Takuya was hiding something.

He was broke out of his thoughts when he heard growling. Shinya's heart didn't miss a beat as he figured it was a dog behind him. But something else surprised him.

"Your brother's Takuya, isn't it!"

Shinya turned to see a familiar sight. He knew what it was from the fact that it was his favourite card. Cerberumon. Shinya wasn't sure wether to be surprised, amazed or afraid that a digimon was standing in the dark, residential street. Not knowing what else to do, he screamed.

* * *

The train arrived in Jiyugoka Station, Takuya disembarked the train, quickly glancing at the clock to see how late it was. He silently cursed to himself, wondering if his parents would notice it was a school night. Business had already shut down for the day as the chill of an April night moved over the city. He felt something twitch in his bag. Obviously Neemon string in his sleep. It amazed Takuya just how much the rabbit could sleep though.

Walking though the town, he had a sense of deja uv of when he came back from the digital world. Not as a digimon. He shivered, not wanting to go though that again. The look of fear on Miska's face was more then enough to send a ping of pain though his chest. And hearing about the 'strange beast kid' the day after just made it worse.

He hoped that they wouldn't see him like that again as he walked towards home.

Suddenly he heard a familiar scream… and a familiar voice.

"Emerald Blaze!"

"Shinya."

* * *

Shinya backed up against the wall on his hands and feet, eyes not leaving the hell hound that stalked up to him, stide stinging from where the green flames got him. He opened his mouth, a green light in his throat began to charge. If an orange blur hadn't intercepted him, he would have been burnt to a crisp then and there. Shinya was deposited behind the brick fence of one of the tersest houses and their small front yard.

"What?!"

"Lightning Paw!"

Cerberumon felt something hit his muzzle. A white cat digimon rolled across the ground, turned and ran back towards the dog to attack again. He battered the annoying cat out of they way.

"Gatomon!" He heard a human yell.

"Stay out of my way." Cerberumon warned the feline, before beginning the search for the warrior's brother, only to find said warrior standing behind him.

"Pyro Tornato!"

Agunimon span quickly, creating a tornado of fire, then appearing in front of Cerberumon, with his foot in his abdomen. Shinya peeked over the stone wall and saw his saviour had kicked Cerberumon and he began to fade into a black slit slit slithouse of himself, a ring of fractal code surrounding him. In that moment, Kari's digi-vice shifted and changed into the new model, white body with pink grips. She aimed the inferred scanner at the code and Cerberumon began to fade away as the code was absorbed into the device. A small white egg landed on the load in front of her.

Takuya was wrapped in fractal code and his Agunimon form disappeared, leaving the young boy on the road. Shinya gasped at the sight of he digimon turning into his brother.

"You okay?" Kari asked the boy, noticing the blood dripping from his side where Cerberumon's blades hit him. "We better get you patched up."

"I'm fine." Takuya protested, searching in his pocket for something to clean up the blood with. In all honesty, he wasn't in so much pain anymore. He found some else in his pocket however.

"My tail ring?!" Gatomon exclaimed, picking up the golden ring. "You found it!"

"Ugh." Takuya stammered at a loss for words.

"You found Gatomon tail ring?" Kari asked.

"Yeah… I guess so." Takuya finally concluded, not sure how it ended up in his pocket. Kari chuckled and kissed the brunette on the cheek. The boy suddenly tensed up at the unexpected action.

"Thank you." She whispered in his ear before she left towards the train station, taking the egg with her, leaving Takuya in the middle of the road, feeling like the luckiest kid alive.

From the shadows of a near by tree, a green eyed digimon peered over the branch, watching two figures part, finding both of them oddly familiar, yet strangers in the timid Flamemon eyes.

* * *

Yukata opened the door, after spending hours in Minato looking for Tommy, he was surprised to find him, along with his parents on the couch watching a sunday night movie. What he found strange was that Tommy had a stuffed animal next to him, a yellow rabbit that was as tall as he was.

"You were out late dear." Their mom said. "Where were you?"

"I was… Where did that toy come from?" Yukata immediately asked.

"Zoe gave it to me." Tommy explained. "It was a souvenir from her trip to Kyoto." Yutaka frowned at the name, and he swore it was moving. Why would those guys give Tommy such a creepy toy?

Tommy's phone gave of a chime as it received a text message from JP asking about Takato, and mentioning that they would be meaning at the Shimbashi station tomorrow after school. He told JP that he would take care of it.

"Is that JP again?" Yukata asked.

"Just making plans." Tommy said hiding the phone behind his back.

"Yeah right." Yukata scuffed, walking away. He sent JP a heads up that his brother might make an unwanted appearance tomorrow.

* * *

"Interesting." Bokomon observed as he read up on the history of the human world, venturing into the ancient realms of myths and legends, and though empires and kingdoms. Izzy had been kind enough to let him stay while Tommy took Neemon in, as long as he acted like a stuffed toy, everything would be fine. Not the hardest thing in the world to do, his head is stuffed anyway. He had recently sampled human cuisine while engaging in human customs with the Izumi family and Tentomon. But the digital world and the changes it's undergone were a difficult thing for him to process. He hoped that it wouldn't be too much to take in.

"These new digi-vices have some brilliant functions." Izzy observed. Bokomon could hear him muttering to himself. "Intercom, playing card reader, inferred scanner, mapping and radar functions… I wonder, why did a digital gate open on the computer at the Junior High school?"

"Maybe going back there would be a good start to finding out." Tentomon observed.

"Tomorrow morning."

* * *

"And where have you been young lady?" Yuuku Kamiya scolded her youngest. Kari had just entered the house with Takuya's duffle bag, with Cerberumon's digiegg inside.

"A friend's pl…" Kari began only to hear a loud bang.

"Tai!" Agumon's voice yelled. Mother and daughter ran into the shared bedroom. Yuku gasped when two familiar figures. Twin feelings of dread and joy overcame her. She remembered these creatures. No. That was suppose to be over.

"Since when did we get a skateboard?" Tai moaned as he picked himself up and noticed his mom staring at Agumon and Gatomon, the later had climbed up the side of the apartment building. "You remember Agumon right mom."

"It's… yeah… but…"

"And Gatomon." Kari added.

"This isn't going to end up like the fog incident four years ago? Right?" Their mother asked, shaking with fear that what might come of this.

* * *

"Hey Matt, what are you doing home so late?" Hiroaki Ishida asked as his son walked though the door.

"I could ask you what your doing home so early." Matt said as Gabumon followed him in.

"Can't stay, I need to get to Setagaya. Sorry I can't stay to catch up with either of you." Hiroaki said noticing the fur coat wearing reptile. "Though now I'm not so sure if people in Jiyugaoka were suffering from hallucinations. Now I know why you were so late."

"What are you talking about dad? I was at Joe's since he wasn't with us to find Gomamon."

"You don't know about a large three headed dog breathing green flames and attacking a kid on a suburban street?" Gabumon raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds like Cerberumon." Gabumon stated. "You wouldn't happen to know the name of the kid that was attacked?"

"Shinya Kanbara?" Both digimon and human looked at each other with nervous expressions.

* * *

"Just hold still Shinya sweety." The nurse asked the boy as she prepared to wrap the burn. "This will only sting a little." She sprayed an artificial skin graph over his burn.

Takuya sat by his mother's side. His wounds were already tended to, and he tried to pass it off as someone trying to stab him while they were putting a lighter to Shinya. It was better then a giant three headed dog that breathed green fire. Yuriko couldn't help but notice sincerity in the eyes of her youngest son, despite how unbelievable the story sounded, and her oldest passing it off as a young boy's imagination.

"There. Bandages should be changed daily. I'll get the release paperwork." The nurse told Yuiko and left the room. Takuya looked at the bandages over and felt a pang of guilt and regret. From Shinya's ramblings, he colluded that Cerberumon came here looking for revenge, thinking that he was weak without Agunimon's power and went after him, finding Shinya instead.

All evening, Agunimon's voice reminded him that it wasn't his fault.

'I know.' Takuya replied mentally. 'But why did Shinya get involved in this?'

'It isn't your fault Takuya, Cerberumon chose to go after your brother, as you chose to protect Bokomon and Neemon.'

'I should be keeping him safe.'

'He is safe. You stopped Cerbeumon from doing further harm."

Meanwhile, Shinya looked kept thinking about what happened in the street. The digimon turned into his brother. Was the digimon pretending to be his brother? What did it do to his brother? Did it save him from the other digimon to gain his trust? And who was that girl? His tamer? It made sense now. Takuya was acting strange for the past year, since his eighth birthday. This was it.

He had to prove to his parents he was telling the truth. And that isn't Takuya.

* * *

Japanese Fact: Hanami - Literally meaning flower viewing, it's a traditional custom that was once limited to the elite of the Imperial Court and is many centuries old. Today, many japanese people would hold a party under the cherry blossom, or sakura tree. The weather bureau announces a cherry blossom front so parties can be planed around those dates since cherry blossoms last for a week or two.

Terran Fact: Sun Elves - One of the oldest surviving races of the dimension of Eternity, they are a proud people who held sixty three of Eternity's two hundred thirty nine empires over it's billion year history. They are credited as the founding race of modern spell craft and the seven element system of the arcane arts, now used in the Commonwealth. Their culture reflects Ancient Greek closely, their warriors were believed to be revered as gods.


	5. School Days in Tokyo

**Chapter four: School Days in Tokyo**

Jamie Sweet had been up for seven hours already. Her morning routine, between meditating for an hour, arcane practice on the roof of the hotel the trio was staying in, a continental breakfast, and a few hours on her collage's archive site looking up a few points of curiosity. She thought about a few things that the children had said last night. Nothing worth reporting or writing down in her digital notebook, she figured she needed more exposure to this digital plain and it's inhabitants before delving into her studies again. She walked into the boy's room, Joey had left to explore the city a little while Blake had fallen to sleep in front of his laptop, readings from where Koji said the girl was, and it been interesting her student for some time now, and frustrating him. On the laptop's desktop, there were two photos, one of Blake, his sister Roxanne, Nephew Simon, godmother Sarah, and godfather Ivan. The other was of eight teenagers of various species, including Jamie, Joey and Blake, along with Koraian, Zane, Charlotte, Clair and Glenn. She remembered seeing a side of Blake that day she would never forget. Speaking of the boy in question, she nudged the boy.

"Just leave the vegemite toast on the table Jeeves." Blake moaned. Jamie sighed.

"Yeast extract on toasted bread is the least of your concerns Blake." Jamie told the boy as he began to arrive in the waking world. She was aware that the boy's half fae nature halved the actual amount of sleep he needed, but she wasn't sure just how long he was awake to begin with. Thirty hours was he best guess. At this point, coffee would be best. "Have you slept since we checked in?"

"Nope. Other then the thirty minute power nap. I'm missing something here. Radiation levels, molecular cohesion, physical constant change… some have red flags, some are normal. In cases of diminutional overlap, the election mass would be twice that, and a spike in low level gamma radiation."

"This is not another physical universe being breached into another. This universe is digital…"

"So we need to look for variables that relate to the digital side of things." Blake was about to start typing when Jamie pulled the laptop out from under his fingertips.

"Parker will look for those variables. You have done enough." She insisted walking off. "Go. I am certain you will not let this day go to waste. And that hover board of yours needs a spin." Jamie couldn't help but get the idea that something was on the boy's mind. She couldn't just ask him, he was stubborn when it came to his own problems. On the desk, next to the laptop was a sphere, floating an inch off the desk. Jamie shivered looking at the golden, floating sphere, first laying eyes on the device and what it did to her.

"Endless wonder. Infinite Horror." Jamie muttered. "What horror will come with this wonder?

She suddenly remembered the control ring, and the symbols on it that she saw on it when the light was hitting it at a particular angle. The symbols my have been alien to her, but their purpose wasn't.

* * *

The school day at Odabia high hadn't progressed all that smoothly for Tai. For starters, his mom would have a panic attack every time someone would turn up unannounced, including their father who had forgotten his keys and came home late, then Izzy in the morning before he went to school. Jun had tried to ambush Matt outside the school in standard fangirl style obsession only to end up tripping over Tai instead, causing gossip to spread that a new couple had started. As if algebra wasn't enough of a problem. The walked up to his locker, hoping his mom packed something normal instead of her standard health food experiment, alias fate had something else in store for the soccer loving digi-destine when he opened his locker, and the smell of homemade bread lofted out of the steel storage container. There was a plastic lunchbox, with a note attached. Confused, Tai read the note.

'I don't suppose you believe in love at first sight. Enjoy, we will meet soon.'

It was unsigned, but Tai knew it wasn't from Sora, no offence to her cooking but she can't. Tai looked inside and found the contents, a pasta dish with garlic bread were prepared lovingly and enough for two. For a moment, Tai tried to think who it was from but failed.

"That smells good." A voice from behind him observed. Tai's skeleton nearly jumped from his mouth as he slammed the locker closed. He turned to find Izzy standing behind him. "I'm guessing you weren't expecting it."

"What's up Izzy?" Tai sighed.

"I found out that the digital gate on the computer is still open. But it was activated on that computer only. I encrypted it so no one would stumble into the digital world accidentally." Izzy assured him.

"That might not stop them." Tai mused.

"What to you mean?"

"If digimon can come to our world, do you think humans could accidentally stumble into theirs by just going about their everyday lives." That was a worrying thought for both digi-destine. "How did your laptop get into the park anyway?"

"Don't know. Who ever took it guessed my password and opened a digital gate on it. How it managed to get into Joey's hands is a mystery. I wonder if it has anything to do with the gate opening in the computer room. Something is really weird is going on around here… "

"Besides the other weird things that's going on around here?"

"Good point. Changing the topic…" Izzy produced the laptop from his bag and opened it.

"So they're not just appearing in Tokyo." Tai moaned.

"Not unless Agumon decided to take a day trip to Yokohama." Izzy added. "I've already got a train route planed out. We'll take the Yamanote line to Shibuya and the Limited Express Tokyu Toyoko Line all the way to the end."

"Don't tell me you've already bought train tickets."

"Okay. I won't."

* * *

"Cerberumon attacked Shinya? Is the kid okay?" Koji asked his brunette classmate. Too this day, neither Takuya nor Koji could explain how each of them didn't meet until that day they went to the digital world when they went to the same school. In their defence, they had different classes, different after school activities, Koji was anti social at the time and they lived in different neighbourhoods. Takuya was always covering for Koji when he was staying at his mom's, and all Takuya needed to do was come over, get slobbered on by the hyperactive house pet, study for a few hours and on the odd occasion, endure the family dinner. It also made catching up with the google head easy, knowing he wouldn't miss soccer practice for anything.

"First and second degree burns. They said he'll be fine after a few weeks." Takuya explained. "But why did he go after Shinya when I was right there in the park."

"Beats me." Koji shrugged, keeping cool but deep inside, he was relieved to hear that Shinya was okay. Little guy could be a bother for as long as Koji knew him, but he didn't want to think about what his death would do to the tight nit Kanbara family. Hell, nearly losing Koichi after they found each other made Koji very protective of his older twin, and their mother. The idea that they were only just getting by in their small apartment in Tamachi was a worrying one. He shock the unpleasant thought from his head before pressing on. "Did your parents find out about Agunimon?"

"No." Takuya said confused. "Why?"

"I ran into Michi and Nakamaura Sensei earlier." Koji explained. "They thought they heard your mom yelling. Very loudly from what I heard."

"Your not going to believe this but after breakfast, Shinya dumped a bucket of ice cold water over my head." Takuya said sheepishly.

"What?!" Koji exclaimed.

"Mom dug into him and I needed a change of clothes. It's weird, the way he kept staring at me. Man, if looks could kill…"

"Do you think he saw you change back?"

"I don't think so but he's crazy about the card game. I'd be more worried about people thinking he's crazy then they tell them his older brother is a digimon." Takuya chuckled. "Mom barely believed a big black dog breathing green fire."

"Good point. Just tread carefully around him. Yukata is already following us, I don't need Shinya atop of that and everything else." Takuya chuckled.

* * *

"I'm telling you, I saw this thing. We've got to call out the national guard! The Army! The Navy! The Air force! The Marines!" Seiji Kurosawa exclaimed to the disbelieving staff.

"A talking dinosaur?" Masafumi Iwamoto questioned, not willing to admit that it might be true after seeing the collection of claw marks on his classroom door. Tommy heard the commotion from his classroom, his teacher trying to figure out what caused the fire alarm to go off and found the principal cowering behind a cardboard box.

"I think the principal has finally gone crazy." Suki whispered to Kirsty.

"Well, my big brother always suspected that school was bad for your health." Kirsty whispered back. Tommy thanked Kumamon's enhanced hearing didn't make him deaf in this crowd, but he did pick up whispering.

"How many times do I have to tell you Terriormon. You've got to say hidden. Now come on."

"Oh I never get to have any fun."

Tommy turned just in time to see a dog eared rabbit disappear into the crowd of legs. He was about to follow when he heard frantic footsteps. It was Takato. He ran past Tommy, towards the scene that had unraveled in the middle of the hall…

And stopped suddenly, turned around and ran towards the stairs. Tommy noticed that he caught the attention of a blue haired, half chinese boy with grey eyes. He really didn't notice what came of that as he was already running after Takato.

"Takato!" Tommy called after him. "Takato!" He caught the ten year old's wrist, the brunet panting after his run. "You okay? What's wrong?"

"Guilmon!" He huffed between breaths. "He must… have followed… me to… school."

Tommy nodded then heard one of the lunch ladies demand "Where's all the food? Do you have any idea how long it took to make the meat loaf all dry and crusty?"

"And my watery spaghetti sauce is all gone."

"The chocolate cake! Think of the chocolate cake!"

"It's Guilmon alright." Tommy muttered. "No human would ever eat that stuff willingly."

"Why did he have to come to school?" Takato asked no one. "Everyboy's gonna find out about him and he's going to be taken away from me for sure."

"Don't say that Takato." Tommy reassured him. "We'll find Guilmon."

"Gulimon?" Their attention was diverted to the boy from earlier, the blue haired chinese boy, arms cross by the door. "You said Guilmon. Well didn't you? He's a digimon right."

Takato looked at the boy in confusion while Tommy ran though excuses.

"Are they digimon tamers too?"

The dog eared rabbit came up behind the boy's legs.

"A Terriormon?" Takato gaspped. "And he talked. I don't believe it."

"How?" Tommy asked. The digital rabbit just chuckled and pointed a finger upwards.

"You two can't be very good digimon tamers if neither of you can keep track of just one digimon." The statement hit Takato hard, Tommy could see the tears welling up in the corner of the brunet's eyes.

"Terrormon!" The boy scolded.

"What?! What?! It's not my fault if they stink at it right! Right!" The digimon jumped around as if to prove a point.

"Leave him alone. It's not like he's done this before." Tommy defended.

"He's right." Tommy heard Takato sob. "He's right!" He ran, in no particular direction, sting of thoughts running though his head.

"Someone should really teach you the meaning of the word tact." Tommy pointed out to the rabbit.

"I am trying." The boy moaned.

* * *

The twin sonic thrusters of the hover-board hummed as it propelled the board and it's rider though the city. He considered it the only way to fly when you didn't have wings. A magic carpet was a close alternative, depending the amount of threads. Flying between the towers of the Government Building, he adjusted course towards the school. He found it easily, despite the absence of flame and smoke bellowing from the windows. Though the red dinosaur on the roof helped.

Blake made the silent landing on the roof and spent a few moments scratching Guilmon behind the ears.

"The trouble you get into." Blake whispered. "Takato is going to have his hands full."

"Where is Takatomon?" Guilmon asked, curled up by his side.

"Three… two… one…" Blake counted back. The door to the rooftop bust open, surprising the digital dinosaur. Surprise turned to pure joy.

"Takatomon! Takatomon!" Guilmon ran up to his tamer and jumped on top of him, nuzzling him.

"Guilmon." Takato took he digimon into a hug once he was able to. The dinosaur didn't know much about humans, or anything about the world he was in but he was sure that his tamer was in some emotional distress. And his eyes were leaking.

"I hate to brake up this happy reunion but, explain to me why you brought your digital dinosaur to sch… or did he follow you here?" Blake asked before chuckling. "This is going to be interesting. How about I take Guilmon to the park, keep him out of trouble there. Or as much trouble as chasing squirrels can get you in. You head back to class. Guilmon, come with Blakemon. Takatomon can't play right now."

"You do know your just encouraging him." Takato pointed out as Guilmon sniffed the hover board, placing a reluctant foot on the jet propelled craft.

"I know." Blake stepped on behind the dinosaur, and the board took off, Guilmon letting out a loud yelp, calling attention to the flying dinosaur by the school principle.

"You saw it too! It was flying!"

"Okay, I've heard about enough."

* * *

Koichi looked up at the result board, expecting Ken to be in the lead… turned out that in last week's math exam, Koichi was on top, Ken only got a ninety nine. Koichi smiled inwardly to himself. It would put Ichijiouji in his place for a while. Guy was a genius sure, but he wasn't humble about it. He wondered if Takuya had played against him in soccer. He's noticed that now merging with Loweemon completely had more perks then when they were stored in his D-Tecter. At first it was improved senses and stamina, then it's Loweemon's voice in his head, Takuya already told him that they didn't need to sprit evolve by using their digi-vice but the wounds they pick up in their digimon form passes on to their human form.

"There he is." He heard one student whisper.

"Wow. Look at that vain on his forehead." Another said.

"Your Koichi right." Koichi turned to see the boy himself, the boy with dark blue hair and eyes, one could mistake them both for a shade of purple. He offered a hand. "Congratulations on the prefect score."

"Uh… Thank you." Koichi said, more focused on something else, a darkness that radiated from the boy. "Wasn't like it was a contest."

'Koichi' Loweemon whispered. 'Move away from him now.'

"I need to go." Koichi said suddenly walking away more coldly then he would like. He needed to get home, get out of the school uniform and catch the next train to Shinjuku.

* * *

No one looked at Jamie twice when she walked into the Odaiba school grounds. Her illusion spell made it so no one looked for too long in her direction until she reached the computer room, finding the five digimon on the ground, binging in junk food, and their partners standing over them chuckling over something she missed. She wondered if it had anything to do with the stone sculptors that were scattered around the room.

"Hey!" Yolei called out.

"Afternoon." Jamie nodded. "I apologise for the intrusion."

"Don't worry about it." Daivs assured her. " We were just waiting on Cody."

"When I checked with the elementary building, he was playing with his last cherry tomato." TK added. "What's up?"

From her handbag, Jamie produced the control ring, causing gasps to come from the digimon. "I require an escort into the digital world. I believe additional intelligence can be found there concerning the mechanics of this disgusting thing."

"Sure. One of us can open the gate and take you though." Kari assured her.

"Why don't we all go?" Davis asked.

"Because one of us needs to tell Izzy to open the gate on his laptop if we want to get to the meeting in time." Yolei pointed out as the door opened and Cody walked in. "What do you need?"

"Matter-Data scan for Parker and an experiment with one of the previously mentioned spire things and this control ring. The ring itself can find us one."

"I'll go to Shinjuku with the others, make sure the portal's open in the park." Yolei volunteered.

"Alright then." Davis took out his digi-vice, aimed it at the screen, and he, Veemon and Jamie were pulled into the digital plain.

* * *

"Sir. I've got some network spikes." The red haired operator pointed out.

"Early for the clock work four o'clock network spike." The man with the lighter pointed out.

"Should I stop the tracer?"

"No. Lets wait and see if old faithful still spikes."

* * *

"There." Cody pointed out a tall spire standing over a sea side village from it's mountain top perch. Jamie viewed the thing with a look of digest. Just looking at it made her blood boil. At the village gates, there were a pair go Gazimon with black rings around their necks.

"Lets go." Davis called out rushing towards the village…

"Hold! Rushing in there without a strategy is at best suicidal." Jamie told the google head.

"No problem. All we need to do is armour digi-volve and blast away." Davis assured her.

"Davis. I am beginning to question the existence of your brain." Jamie huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We are dealing with an individual who is both cunning and sadistic."

"Meaning?" Davis said scratching his head, the limits of his vocabulary being tested.

"Meaning we have the element of surprise. A good strategist doesn't give up that element without getting the advantage on his opponents." Jamie kept herself from screaming.

"The emperor could be using innocent digimon as hostages." TK reminded him.

"Or worse, fighters." Cody added.

"And our focus is to buy enough time to…" Jamie stopped. She snapped her fingers. "Davis. I am going to ask you to do something that is likely to be impossible." She fished the control ring from her bag.

"Yeah."

"Shut up and run."

None of the Gazimon expected it, but when it happened, it felt like they were being stimulated and sedated over and over again, the feeling of their free will being forced back into place before the control rings took over again. They were so disorientated, they didn't notice the group of humans and digimon, lead by a blue cloaked elf, ran right into the city. They certainly didn't notice the glowing white ring with blue digi-code.

* * *

Mimi let out a soft sigh and held the cold water bottle to her head. Did she complain this much in the digital world? She was aware that she was high maintenance, but Rumiko Nonaka had to be worse, wanted everything her way, right down to the 'plant' in the corner. The moment she heard it needed trimming, she ushered Palmon out of there.

Thankfully, she didn't need to put up with Rumiko's moaning much longer. Once she was done, she left for the park and found Palmon, with Blake and a sleeping Guilmon

"…isn't much different from Tokyo, though theres more influence of western cultures." The boy told Palmon. "And there's this giant park in the middle of Manhattan. Get Mimi to take you there some time. You'll love it."

"I'm sure. So why do they call it the Big Apple?" Palmon asked.

"I imagine it would have something to do with apple pie. They do love their apple pies over there, and guns. I have never meet a human american that hasn't had an itchy trigger finger."

"Hey Mimi!" Palmon called out to the pink haired, cowboy hat wearing girl.

"Hey." Mimi pointed to the digital dinosaur. "What's with…"

"He's kinda resting off a school trip. Followed his partner to school and caused a little havoc to the principals mental state." Blake answered, scratching the sleeping dinosaur behind the ears. "And while chasing our acorn hoarding friends, he tripped over Palmon, out picking flowers. Napping ever since." Mimi chuckled at the story.

"He is kinda cute." Mimi pointed out.

"And heavy." Palmon added.

"You didn't have to try an lift him." Blake reminded her. "I am never stepping on any flowers in the near future." Blake checked his watch. "Should be any minute…"

"Guilmon!" They heard a boy call out. Mimi saw a google waring Takato running toward the four, with Tommy and two boys his age, the taller of the four was a light brown haired boy, the other, shorter had darker brown and glasses.

"So this is the digimon that saved us from the dreaded cafeteria food?" One of the boys asked.

"He may have saved our lives." The taller pointed out. "It's only a matter of time before they kill someone with their cooking."

"Sorry?" Blake called out, as Takato stirred Guilmon from his sleep by rubbing the bridge of his muzzle. "Me very confused here. Who are they?"

"Tommy's former bullies." Takato pointed out.

"You told them?" Blake turned to Tommy. "What did they do? Threaten to melt you?"

"They heard the principal raving about a dinosaur, they connected the dots since they've been to the digital world before, but they were never chosen by the sprits."

"Names?"

"Katsuharu and Teppi." Tommy said.

"Come on Guilmon." Takato said walking towards a field.

"Are we going to chase squalls Takatomon?" Guilmon asked as the assembled humans and digimon followed.

"No. We need to find a place to stay where you wont cause any trouble."

"Aww. I wanted to see if we could drive the principal insane by the end of the term." Katsuharu moaned as Guilmon started growling. "We'll have to get Tommy to make it snow."

"Sorry guys. Not without a good…" Tommy was interrupted by a loud crash. Guilmon was kicked into the dirt.

"What was that?" Blake demanded, looking around to find the attacker, a humanoid yellow and white fox knelling in the tree.

"What a lousy fighter." A red haired girl moaned, catching the attention of all the kids in the area. "But a fights a fight."

Takato made a revelation, looking at the girl's lilac eyes. This was the girl from his dreams.

"What's the big idea?!" Mimi yelled, noting that neither the girl nor digimon had noticed Palmon.

"That was your digimon eating dirt." The girl said stepping forward.

"Not the question she was asking." Blake said. "She meant why did you attack him for no good reason." Behind his back, Mimi noted that he was tracing a finger over the touchscreen display of his watch.

"What do you think digimon were made for?" The girl demanded.

"For goodness sake, let's just get this over with." The fox demanded, leaping up in the air and crossing her arms. "Diamond Storm!" Crystals formed around her and hailed down towards Guilmon. A board of smooth metal appeared over Guilmon, any crystals directed at him smashed into the hover board, some bouncing off and hitting the digimon annoyingly.

"What!"

"Guilmon! Runaway!" Takato ordered, but the dino digimon had other ideas on his mind. Renamon landed in the tree as the hover board moved away.

"Pyro sphere." Renamon leapt out of the way in time for the sphere of red plasma to miss her. She leapt at Guilmon and tackled him while the girl had a holographic display up on her digi-vice.

"I know her." Mimi pointed out. "That's Rika Nonaka, I was in a photo shoot with her mom." The only reason she recognised her was because Rumiko had the decency to talk a second to show off her lovely daughter and moan about how she can't get her to ware a dress anymore.

While Guilmon and Renamon struggled, Tommy took the moment to consider that both tamer and digimon were distracted. He dashed behind a tree to sprit evolve, fractal code covering him and he emerged at the human warrior of ice, Kumamon.

Palmon knew she couldn't stand by and watch this. She joined the battle and wrapped Renamon in her poison ivy. Tommy aimed Kumamon's blaster at the fox and gave her the snow pummelling of her digital life. Guilmon refused to let up, tacking the fox and pinning her to the ground.

"Three of them?!" Rika questioned. She smiled. "More data for Renamon then." She drew a card from her pouch. "This will do." She placed it in the card reader…

Tommy aimed the gun on the girl and fired, a snow ball hitting her hand and knocking the device out of her hand…

Rika remembered when Cerberumon was breathing down her neck… She froze…

"Stop it!" They heard a voice call out. Takato, Mimi, Tommy, Katsuharu, Teppi, Rika, Palmon, Guillmon and Renamon turned to the blue haired boy that stood atop the hill, with his dog eared digital bunny.

"You heard him. Cease and desist at once." Blake agreed.

"It's you." Takato whispered.

"It's me. It's him. Aren't you happy to see us?" Terrormon asked as he ran up to the digimon.

"A digimon?" Rika questioned.

"What? You don't want to make your pet here kick him around like a floppy eared rugby ball. No. I know, gut him and serve him up for the divine cruelty that it you. All will knell before Rika, or face punishment from the great fox guardian." Blake went on.

"You looked like you were doing well, holding your own against all those digimon." Terrormon complemented Renamon only to add "But didn't you feel silly rolling around in the dirt like that?" This did make the fox feel slightly insulted.

"It's not wise to mouth off to someone bigger then you." The boy noted.

"Henry. Momenti."

"He's not the one with a problem." Blake pointed out. "What I want to know is why foxy here decided to attack our friend here. And there better be a good reason. Because I am seriously trying to keep myself from skinning both of you alive." She nodded to Rika to make a point.

Rika sighed, letting the threat fall on death ears. "It's what digimon do, they fight, and when they win, they get stronger."

"Do you agree to any of this?" Blake asked Renamon. She just remained silent. "How many digimon have you killed in your quest for strength? You haven't counted. Have you."

"What's the point. They're just data. Nothing more. Nothing less."

"WHAT!?" Tommy froze hearing her. Zoe.

* * *

Yukata ran into his room quickly to change out of his school uniform and into something that might blend in. Afterwoods he stopped outside of Tommy's room. The door was open. He heard snoring. He pushed the door open, immediately, he found the yellow rabbit doll lying on the bed. He reached out to it…

The door slammed closed, waking the rabbit, jack knifing up into Yukata's hand. Both let out cries of shock.

"Yukata!?" His mom came running up stairs. "What happened?"

Neemon stayed still, reminded of what Tommy said. Remain still when someone other then him is around.

"Yukata! What are you doing in your brother's room?" Rieko Himi demanded. She got no response. "I'm getting tired of this young man." She dragged the still frozen Yukata out of the room and closed the door behind them. Neemon let out a sigh and fell back to sleep.

* * *

Everyone turned to see that four of the legendary warrior hosts were standing onto of the hill with similar faces of contept for the red head girl. Zoe looked down right furious. Tommy had seen the expression on Zoe's face several times before with an ill spoken word from Takuya, a brush off from Koji or even when someone threatened her friends, but this magnitude was reserved only for the most despised of occasions. The boys were lucky not to see this face directed at them, but even they knew better then to call digimon just data. He felt sorry for the girl now that she was about to endure the full and uncontrolled wrath of the warrior of wind.

"Just data." Zoe repeated as she began to close the gap between them. "What the hell do you mean 'Just Data'? Just how the hell did you become a digi-destine with that attitude? Just who do you think you are attacking Guilmon like that with your pit bull over there? Just why would you go attacking someone out of the blue like that?"

"Which one do you want me to answer first?" Rika asked, unfazed and with a board expression. "Liston. I'll go show for you blondie. Digimon are only made to fight. They fight each other and when they win they absorb their opponent's data and they digi-volve." Her explanation only served to get the young girl madder. "What elseare are digimon going to do?"

"Anything they want." Takuya spat.

"Yeah. They're not fighting machines." JP backed up.

"Guys! Zoe!" Koji yelled. "Leave her alone."

"What!?" Everyone yelled.

"You heard me. If she wants to go around, acting like a spoilt brat trying to get mommy's attention, who are we to get involved. Just as long as she stays out of our way." Koji elaborated.

"What's that suppose to mean?" Rika yelled at the bandana wearing boy.

"Wow. And I thought you were older then me. Turns out your just another kid throwing a temper tantrum. So much for being the Digimon Queen. Can't even make her little fox digi-volve past rookie. Look, I don't care what you do, or how you go around, trying to get yourself killed trying to prove just how much of a brat you can be, just don't drag me or my friends or my associates or anymore innocent digimon into it. We've got more important things to do then deal with an obnoxious four year old who thinks she's got something to prove. Come on guys." Koji turned around and began to walk away.

"Just wait a minute! Who the hell do you think you are?!" Rika yelled, now infuriated.

Koji stopped. "Someone who learnt the lessons you really need to learn a long time ago."

Takuya just looked at Koji in disbelief. He just scolded the girl like he scolded Takuya all those months ago, only this time, he wasn't just being hash, he basically just basically verbally abused her. No one saw what happened next coming… not even Renamon as she charged at Koji.

Koji turned just as the fox digimon's fist was inches from his face. There was a loud throaty yell and a flaming fist was planted in Renamon's muzzle. She rolled across the ground while her Tamer's eyes widened at the development. Her eyes weren't the only ones…

Takuya recognised the digimon, a long orange brown mane, tanned skin, tribal marks on his face and chest. Flamemon.

"Where did he come from. Nevermind. Just more data for Renamon." Rika smiled as her digimon picked herself up from the ground. Takuya watched as the Flamemon clutched his head in his hands. Renamon kept in to the air, crossed her arms and prepared an attack.

"Dimaond…

"Pyro Punch!"

A second fist ran into Renamon's muzzle and sent her into the ground. This time, it was Agunimon's gauntlet, on Takuya's arm. Shock was painted over everyone's face. Rika's that a human would even be able to hit a digimon with such force, Renamon's that a human would have a digimon's attack, the legendary warriors that Takuya had partially turned into Agunimon's form, the only one who wasn't shock was Guilmon who was watching the whole thing with a little disinterest. He'd rather be chasing that squirrel right now.

"Great. This is going to get out of hand quickly." Rika sighed. She'd rather like to think this whole thing though right now then deal with who's what. "Renamon." Disapointed, she walked off, Renamon following behind. Both vanished without a trace once they walked behind the tree.

Takuya's hand turned back to normal and he turned to the Flamemon still behind him. Only he was gone.

* * *

Jamie raised a hand as they stopped behind a building, just at the base of the hill, just by the path to it's summit. TK directed Patamon to scout ahead for anymore guards. Jamie checked her seals on the ring as the digi-destine caught their breath, and digimon went on high alert. Once Kari's breathing stopped, a thought crossed her mind and worried her.

"What you did to that ring isn't hurting the digimon is it?" She asked.

"I hope not." Jamie answered, fearing the same. She could tell her words didn't comfort the youngest Kamiya sibling. "That is way we are running. So if it does cause them pain, we do not let it cause it for more then it is required."

"And right now?" Gatomon asked.

"The ring is not active now. It confirmed some of my theories but we need that control spire." Jamie answered. She watched Davis pull out his digi-vice and his digi-metal of courage card. "Daisuke. There will be a time to fight, but at this moment, going all out will only get your partners hurt and innocent digimon killed. If Taichi were here, I believe he would tell you the same." Patamon came flying back and landed on TK's head.

"The coast is clear." He cheered.

"Cody and Armadillomon will stay at the rear. Daisuke and Veemon will remain in the lead with me. The ring will now keep us hidden from anyone wearing one, but the closer to the spire we are, the less influence it has. Be ready for a fight. Understood?" Everyone agreed, and off they went.

* * *

"Koji? What the hell man?" Takuya asked at the group walked to the meeting spot.

"Yeah. It almost sounded like you wanted her to attack you." Mimi observed.

Koji shrugged. "Wouldn't do her any good. It's not like we're made out of data." He noticed the chinese boy with the Terriormon on his shoulder following them. "Who are you again?"

"Henry Wong." The boy introduced. "You guys know about digimon."

"Know about digimon. Turn into digimon." JP pointed out.

"Trust me. More complicated then it sounds." Blake pointed out. "What are you trying Minamoto?"

"I kinda came from the same school of life as that red head over there. If she wants to go around, getting her fox to attack digimon and absorb their data, she can go right a head. We just need to keep her from doing it." He turned to the others. "And if she wants to act like a spoilt child, we might as well treat her like one. It worked for Takuya didn't it?"

"Hey!" Almost everyone had a laugh at Takuya's expense. Blake just held back while Mimi was wrapped in her own thoughts, and Henry who didn't find the insult funny.

"That's it!" Blake yelled suddenly. Everyone stopped and turned. "That's the missing variable. Network data."

"What are you talking about?" Takato asked.

"Come on." Blake lead the group into the clearing where the older digi-destine, along with Koichi and Yolei were waiting.

"Hey!" Tai called out, then noticed the new kids. "Who are these guys?"

"Henry, Terriormon, Katsuharu and Teppi." Takato pointed out as the introductions started again, Blake found Joey, Yolei and Izzy talking amongst themselves. He approached them excitedly.

"I've been trying to figure out a way to track the appearances of digimon in the real world but they don't follow the same channels as other cross diminutional transportation. If someone can purpose a system to scan data packets, we won't just be able to get an idea where they're going to appear, but we'll get a destination minutes in advance." Blake explained. "She was right about one thing. Digimon, physically are just data. That's probably how they get into this world in the first place. I mean, this city is so packed, so dense, all those cell towers, wifi signals and broadcasting stations…"

"Hang on, so you're telling us that digimon are just coming out of these signals?" Izzy asked.

"It's possible they're using… She?" Joey asked.

"Girl we ran into on the way here. Thought Digimon were only good for fighting." Blake explained, only now noticing the laptop in Izzy's hands. "Am I missing something here?"

"Davis, Kari, TK, Cody and Jamie are in the digital world, looking for one of those control spires." Yolei explained.

"She did what?" Blake questioned

"Never mind about that. We've got more digimon appearing in Yokohama." Izzy showed Blake the photos. "These were posted to a conspiracy site today."

"Yokohama too?" Takato asked walking up to the group. The had caught the attention of everyone else, human and digimon alike.

"We'll need to investigate it now, while clues are still fresh." Tai announced.

"I planed on going but if Kari, Davis and the others are still in the digital world, someone will have to wait for them to come out." Izzy mentioned. "And it is my laptop."

"If I call my parents now, I can say I'm at a friends place." Yolei announced.

"I should be able to get away will staying out tonight." Matt pointed out. "Dad will probably think I'm practising."

"Mom's working late tonight." Koichi said. "I she won't notice I'm gone"

"Izzy. Make sure you get everything from Jamie when she comes out of the digi-Port." Blake instructed.

"You're not going anywhere without me." Takuya spoke up.

"Great. I've already got seven train tickets. Just need one more…" Izzy started.

"I'll go." Henry spoke up, taking the train tickets from Izzy.

"Great." Tai spoke up. "We'll keep in contact. Let you guys know if we find anything. One more thing Izzy." From his own bag, Tai pulled out a relatively new, orange and blue pineapple laptop. "Think you can install the digi-Port on this."

Izzy raised an eye. "Well, it might help if you need back up. Open it up. I'll try something." Tai did, and Izzy pulled out his digi-vice. "Digi-Port open."

On the computer screen flickered and the digi-port appeared on it. The screen turned clear.

"It worked." Izzy gasped, then he noticed the time. "You better hurry if you want to catch your first train."

Takuya noticed the time. "Oh man. Why does this always happen!?"

* * *

Jamie expected the walk to be a difficult one, but instead, she enjoyed it. No fights, no problems, only the moaning from Davis was getting on her nerves. She smiled to herself, the boy had a lot to learn about leadership, but some how, he reminded her of another's personality, confidence that his abilities would pull though, even with no idea of what would be behind that unopened door, though the need to apply combat to any solution isn't something she admired, and neither would the person she was remind of.

"Hold." She said suddenly. "And remain silent." They did, and she closed her eyes, focusing on little things. She couldn't scene anything on the summit, so she proceeded, becoming them to follow. On the summit was the control spire, standing tall, proud and dominating.

"Davis, Veemon, keep an eye out. If anything approaches, have Flamedramon burn it to a crisp." Jamie told them. Davis perked up at those words. "This should not take long."

Kari, TK, Patamon and Gatomon followed Jamie to the control spire. They watch her approach it carefully, not noticing her smile. She knew this would be easy.

"What?" TK asked.

"I just need a length of chalk." Jamie answered, fishing one out from her handbag, along with a square persian rug. She untied it and let it on the ground. "Other then that, time."

She got to work.

* * *

"Sir. I've got another one coming though."

"Send a tracer." The blonde man demanded. He was not in a good mood since Raptor one just escaped en route to his lab.

"Got it. Visual contact in ten."

On the large dome screen, a giant chicken cam into view. One of the operators couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"What is that thing?"


	6. Yokohama Chaos

**Chapter Five: Yokohama Chaos**

It was about an hour later when Yolei was pulled from her sleep by Koichi nudging her awake as the train pulled in to Yokohama Station. Around her, commuters and tourists alike had began to rise from their seats and made their way to the open doors while Yolei followed the warrior of darkness with Tai, Matt, Henry, Takuya and Blake assumably behind or ahead. She wondered how Hawkmon was doing stored him her little digi-vice as data.

Blake on the other hand was more concerned about the idea that something was following them since they left Shinjuku Park. It was little things like movement in the corner of his eye, leaves rustling when there was no wind, noises on the roof of the train like someone was trying to walk across it.

He was too focused on the concern that he ran into someone.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" The young man about fifteen yelled.

"Sorry." Blake apologised losing his line of thought. The boy muttered something about tourists while Blake caught up with Takuya and Tai who were gathered around a map of the city while Matt stood over them. helping the google heads to divide up the city unit seven searchable areas.

"If anyone does find this stray Agumon, Call me or Takuya and we'll get everyone together and send it back with this." Tai said as he brandished the laptop. He was glad to get some better use out of it other then research for homework and keeping in contact with Izzy and Mimi. He would have to really thank his parents again for what he thought would be a useless birthday present.

"Everyone keep an ear out for a text message when someone else does find it." Takuya added. "And don't approach it if you don't have to. It might not be aggressive, but I'd rather have everyone around before we find out it is."

"Everyone pick a spot and start searching." Matt began, pushing the map towards Henry, Koichi and Yolei. "And remember, we meet back here in two hours if we don't find anything."

Yolei picked the shopping district. Henry ran with China Town. Koichi decided the industrial district was worth a look. Matt took the business district. Tai and Takuya each took a half of the foreshore and Blake was left with the residential area.

"Blake!" He heard Koichi call out. He didn't know the boy to be so forward unless it was important. He turned to see the older of the yin and yang twins standing behind him.

"You called?" Blake asked.

"Something's just been bothering me. This kid at school, Ken Itchijouji."

"What about him?"

"Loweemon just told me to get away from him. I don't know what he felt but…"

"But you get a bad feeling from him as well. Both of you." Blake thought about this for a moment. "Interesting. What else can you tell me about him?"

"He's the resident genius and none too humble about it." Koichi answered. "In fact, Koji would say he's…"

"…A total jerk about it." Takuya finished for him. "Koji at least used a few colourful words after meeting him."

"You two wouldn't happen to know where he lives?" Blake asked the two legendary warriors. "I suddenly have this urge to meet him. And slip a lit stick of dynamite in to his school bag." He added walking away. Koichi didn't much like the sound of that last part.

* * *

"Okay my dear. Let me see what's on the next section." Jamie heard Bokomon ask over Davis' Berry, the smartphone able to connect though to Izzy's Pineapple via a videophone app. The mage moved the phone to the left, a number of digi-code coming into the laptop's screen. "Hold it there please."

Jamie watched the digimon scholar draw something on a notepad while she heard the flapping of someone's large ears.

"How long is this going to take?" Patamon asked from behind her. She smiled.

"As long as it must." Jamie answered back.

"This." Bokomon showed her a symbol that was two squares with corners overlapping, the top right over the bottom left. Jamie drew the symbol in the blank space. "And rub out the one that looks like the smily face with asterisks for eyes." She found it and rubbed it out with her hand. Slowly, the obelisk began to feel… less intimidating, like the effect it's having over the general area was shifting…

"…and when I see her, I'll teach her a lesson!" She noticed Davis was yelling. She decided to ignore it for now.

"…one with the big mouth!" TK responded. This made Jamie question what made the normally level headed boy yell

"That's enough!" She then heard Kari yell. There wasn't much yelling after that.

"Jamie?" She heard Bokomon call out.

"Next section?" She asked, wanting to get the spire converted as soon as she could manage. Something was coming, and it set the sun elf mage on edge.

* * *

About an hour in, Blake checked his disposable phone for the sixth time. Not because he had too. He had the electro-magnetic emulator in his D-Pilot link to the phone's basic bluetooth, and the wrist mounted device would send the text message to the HUD that was being projected over the visual part of his brain. He had it up anyway since he would be searching for an elusive orange reptile. If he missed it, the quantum processes wouldn't. The phone buzzed in his hand, the message displayed over his vision.

Taichi Kamiya - "We've found nothing over here? How's it going on your end?"

Blake mentaly wrote a message. "Nothing yet. I'll remain vigila…"

"Attention. A Gas leak has been detected in the area. Authorities are now attempting to remove it. Please return to your homes or seek shelter indoors." Came a voice from a near by police car. Or at least it looked like a police car. He caught the sight of a strange logo on the side, with the letters DATS on the side. He brought up the phone's web browsing feature, goggling the four letters. The first webpage that came up, lead to a site that claimed the United Nations was covering up aliens with the organisation known as DATS. He erased what he was about to send to Tai.

"I think I have something." Blake sent. The message vanished from his vision and was on it's way and Blake ran after the car. He made it to a yellow police line where a red haired young woman was talking to a police officer. He drew his smartphone and started typing madly.

Yoshi heard a loud noise. A fire alarm? It came from one of the shop fronts as people ran out soaking wet. Another fire alarm went off, and another, and another… in a few minutes, the streets were flooded with soaking wet people. The boy in the leather duster waltz past them unnoticed, hood up, gloves on.

"Yoshi!"

"Damn." Blake muttered, not sure where the voice came from, but very sure it's owner had spotted him. He didn't look over his shoulder, he just ran, not noticing the number of young men who were on the ground of a circular plaza, moaning and in obvious pain. He made a note to ask about it later. He found himself stopping at the top of the steps… he found it.

'Call Taichi Kamiya.' He ordered mentally, the psychic link carried the order and in a moment, he heard Tai's voice echo in his head.

"You found him?"

'Yep.'

"I'll get everyone. Where are you?"

'Just look for the supposed gas leak. And one more thing. No hurry.' Blake informed him. 'I have a feeling this will be entertaining.' He heard the girl call out something from behind. Something about the Agumon being spotted and about to engage with another human, a brown haired fourteen year old that stuck Blake as yet another google head, just without the googles, and picking a fight with an orange lizard didn't strake him as intelligent.

"Never stopped me." Blake muttered to himself, trying to get closer to the action. He could hear both of them talking.

"…Fans all over will chant my name! They'll say Marcus Damon is the best!" The boy yelled. Marcus Damon huh.

"Dry up! Boy, you're really full of yourself!" The orange reptile, said. He's not wrong there. Blake though as he noticed the lizard looked more like Agumon. "You're just like all the other humans! All talk and no action!"

"Keep it up and I'll knock you out like I did these guys!" Blake then knew it was the young boy beat up those young men he passed earlier. They probably deserved it.

"What'd ya do!? Talk them all to sleep!"

"Hey you!" Blake was startled by the sudden yell. "Stop right there! You can't fight that creature! He's too dangerous!" Blake heard the woman call out from behind. What was her name, Yoshi something.

"Look toots! I'm the dangerous fighter here! And I don't need any baby sitter to hold my hand!" Marcus called out.

"He's right! This is between him and me!" The Agumon backed up.

"This is a fight between men. So stay out of it!"

"Fine then!" The Yoshi girl retorted.

"Yoshi! Don't back down from him!" The voice from earlier, Blake noticed that it was coming from the device in her hand. Yoshi's stepped forward.

"This is your last warning!" She yelled.

"I don't know what you are, but your going down." Marcus said to the reptile as they rushed each other. Claw meet face. Fist meet muzzle. Both combatants flew across the battle field from the resulting blows.

"Hey! I wasn't ready!" The reptile said recovering from the flight. "I was expiating you to say '1,2,3,Go.' Like this. 1,2,3,Go!" The reptile went at him again, only for Marcus to kick him to the Agumon's surprise.

"What's your excuse this time?!" Marcus demanded just before a claw hit him in the face.

"No more talk!"

"Fine! Let's do some real fighting!"

The two combatants began to fight, matching each other blow for blow, while Yoshi stood shocked, Blake wished he had popcorn.

* * *

Takuya let out a frustrated huff. This was Koji's strong point, patience, though he admittedly better then when he entered the digital world. Walking down the main street of a Yokohama neighbourhood that reminded him of Jiyugoka, just the smell of salt air from being so close to the ocean reminded him he wasn't in Jiyugoka. He looked at the cherry blossoms in bloom on the street side, reminded of the neighbourhood's Cherry Blossom Festival and somehow asked himself if Kari wouldn't mind joining the festivities this friday…

His thoughts was interrupted by someone bumping into him, someone wearing a yellow jacket. He felt the man step on his foot.

"Ow!" Takuya yelled. It didn't so much hurt, it was just the shock. He turn to the man in the yellow coat. "Hey! Watch where your go…" He's foot meet something. Looking down, he found the sole of his foot was atop of a white and gold metal egg… A digi-metal. The warrior of flame picked up the metal to get a closer look at it. His class touched on Ancient Egypt last year, one of the few things Takuya paid any attention to in class. The egg reminded him of an artefact found, lost for centuries and left to the mercy of unforgiving time, sealed in a tomb with an ancient mummified king who might of needed the artefact in the afterlife. That and he remembered seeing this colour theme, on a digimon. Nefertimon. He found a symbol on it, one of the crests? He'd have to ask Tai or Matt about it.

Next to it, now under his shoe was a digimon card. He picked it up finding a picture of the digi-metal on it. The card declared it as the 'Digi-metal of light.' He slipped the metal into his jacket pocket, just as his phone vibrated. It was a text from Tai.

"Blake found the rouge Agumon. Said he wasn't hostile. Said he'd meet us at a hamburger stand in Marine Park."

* * *

Two combatants lied on the ground panting, the sunset dying the area a bright orange. The display of combat had ensnared the attention of the girl long enough for Blake to lift something from the girl's pocket but had yet to examine what it was he picked up. He was just watching the two combatants make up. What ever caused their conflict was long forgotten now as the digital reptile and human sat up and began to introduce themselves to each other.

"…the only guy who matched me blow for blow in a fight before. That makes you the boss." The Agumon said. "From now on, you give the orders, and I'll faithfully follow." As Blake got closer, he could see that he was a darker shade of orange then the other Agumon. He then wondered if Digimon went by individual names, or were like some clans of metaphysical societies and they would know who each other were without names.

Blake then wondered something about what this Agumon said. Was he looking for a human partner? Was that why he came here?

"I'm your boss huh." The kid said, Marcus wasn't it. Marcus Damon? "I never thought that one day I'd have an employee as funny looking as you are."

"Freeze Right There!" Blake froze before remembering the officer that ran after him. He turned, so far, Marcus, Agumon or the officer had noted him standing to the side. She was holding something, a rectangle shaped deceive. "Lalamon! Realise!"

A flash of light later, a pink and green digimon floated between the officer and the two, much to the shock of Marcus. The Agumon wasn't so much shocked, but he was on the defensive.

"So, are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use force?" The officer demanded. Blake charged his weapon, a low pitched wine signalled that the plasma cell was warming up.

"Who is she talking to? You or me?" Blake heard Marcus ask.

"Don't let them take me back boss. Please." He then heard Agumon plead. "If they get me this time, they'll destroy me for sure."

That dismissed what ever doubts Blake had in his head. He aimed the weapon at the officer and made his presence know. "Hold your position and remain calm!

"What's going on here?" Marcus demanded.

"What are you doing kid?" Yoshi demanded.

"Better question is, why aren't you running?" Blake responded, turning to Marcus. "The smart move would be to run while she's distracted." The brown haired kid lifted Agumon over his shoulders.

"I've never had an employee before, and I'm not turning my only one over to you!" He told the girl as he began to run.

"Tell her boss!"

"Hey! Wait up!" Yoshi yelled as Lalamon began to attack. Two by two, shots of seeds pelted the ground at Marcus' feet, causing him to fall. Blake fired his weapon, hitting Lalamon first, then Yoshi.

Yoshi wasn't sure what happened after she blacked out, when she came too, one of the men that was knocked out was asking of she was alright. He had her DATS badge, saying it was left by the stairs. They also noticed Lalamon, but when she looked for her memory eraser, it was gone. This is the worst.

* * *

"Curious." Izzy said to himself, inspecting the digi-metal of knowledge again. He placed it on the table along with the metals of courage and love, Tentomon looking up at his partner with interest. "These metals have the same consistency as the crests but there's something missing to them. I wonder if they're like ores and need to be refined before they can be used."

Joey wasn't paying much attention. He had accessed the city wide Wi-Fi to hack in to various government databases and give him, Jamie and Blake identities. We was sure that J.P was looking over his shoulder once in a while. And he wasn't the only one of the remaining group that remained behind that wasn't paying attention. Tommy was on the phone with his mom, Joe was studying for his oral exam, Zoe and Takato walked over to the Matsuki Bakery for dinner and Guilmon was playing with Gomamon.

"I don't know what's gotten into him mom but…" Tommy stated as the conversation took on a sudden hostility. "You know how crazy that sounds? Where is he now?" Tommy bit his lip as he got what sounded like a sigh and depressed expiation that all his bother said was that he was going out. "No. That's alright mom. I'm sure to run into him. Yes, I know it's a school night. I'll be home before eight. Love you too."

The orange hat youngster hung up and leaned back on a near by tree with a look of mild terror.

"Big brother?" Joey asked, not looking up from his screen as a message appeared on his laptop, and a photo.

"Worse. He may have found Neemon in my room and now he's coming to find me." Tommy answered.

"That's mildly concerning." Izzy mentioned.

"What's DATS?" Joey asked catching everyone's attention. JP was the first to speak up.

"Some special police devision based out of Yokohama. They were all over the Shibuya Incident." He explained. "They called themselves the Digital Accident Tactics Squad."

"That might mean…" Joe started. "The government knows about digimon?"

"Looks like it." Izzy answered. "This is odd."

"What?" JP asked.

"There's a lot of network traffic being routed though Shinjuku. I'm just having trouble understanding why." The young computer geek looked up to the building looming over them, as it the building itself had something to do with it.

* * *

"Come on damn it." Blake cursed under his breath. He was concerned that Joey had forgotten to update the smartphone's apps until the door clicked and unlocked. He pushed it open and let Marcus and Agumon into the tower.

"I gotta hand it to ya boss. That was a great escape." Agumon complimented as they made it to the observation deck.

"Thanks Agumon. But there's been one thing that's been bothering me. Who are we running away from!?" Marcus demanded. "And what kind of thing are you anyway? Where did you come from?"

"Gee. I don't know." Agumon said, looking over the city. "I guess I come from the institution."

"The institution?" Blake asked.

"Please don't let them take me back there." Agumon pleaded.

"What am I getting myself into this time?" Marcus asked no one in particular as Blake started texting Tai, giving him the details of what happened. He gave him a moment to digest and text back while watching what was taking place. "I don't know what kind of trouble your in, but I'll help you out."

"Oh thank you boss. I'll never ask for another thing again." There was a loud growl that told the two humans otherwise. "Except food. I'm starved."

Blake laughed as his phone ran. He let the two talk it out as he picked up.

"I'm guessing you couldn't wait for a text." Blake said to the bushy haired boy on the other end.

"Yeah. What do you mean there's a government agency hunting digimon in Yokohama?" Tai demanded.

"I don't know. But that's not even the start of it. The officer had a digi-vice, or at least it looked like a digi-vice. It didn't look like the one you had originally. Or one of the new ones either." Blake answered. "I'd go as far to say that this one seemed… wrong."

"Like the emperor's?"

"Since I've never seen the emperor's to begin with, I wouldn't know. But it seemed more like a cheap knock off rather then an actuarial digi…"

"Back off!" Blake heard Marcus yell.

"Where are you?" Blake asked.

"Marine Park. With everyone else. We're about to order." Tai answered.

"Make it take away. And bring a few extra burgers. We're on the observation deck of Marine Tower."

"With the other Agumon and the new Digidestine right."

"Yep. You might want to hurry." Blake hung up and rejoined the two. "I've got a friend bringing food. Hope you like hamburgers."

"A hamburger sounds pretty good right about now."

"A friend?" Marcus asked with some skepticism.

"He has more experience in this sort of thing. Plus he's a likeable fellow. Little hard headed but you two will get along. Agumon." Blake turned his attention to the digital reptile. "What is the institution?"

* * *

"And done." Jamie cheered. She allowed herself in enjoy the moment before reminding herself that she has yet to test the spire's new 'configuration' and observe the results. If Bokomon's substations were correct then the control spire's energy will stop powering the black rings, and start repelling them, along with freeing any digimon in the area.

She was just stuck on how to force the spire to use the configuration laid out before it. She was certain that the symbols on the spire dictated…

"Come on Davis. Ask me who's there." She heard Veemon's voice, it was hard to miss that lisp. She figured if anyone loved a knock knock joke, it would be that google head. Once her carpet made it to the ground, she walked over to the boy and his blue reptile partner.

"Who kicked your puppy?" Jamie asked, half expecting her attempt at humour to fail.

"She hates me." Davis moaned.

"Who? Kari? I highly doubt that."

"She said she couldn't stand me."

"What did you do to make her feel that way?" Davis stayed silent. "You neglected to digest the entire conversation." Jamie sighed. Typical.

"I've never seen Davis this upset." Veemon told Jamie.

"He will get over it eventually. Time heals all…"

"Incoming!"

They were interrupted by a sudden flood of Gazimon. Jamie was able to hide behind the spire itself. But the others weren't so lucky. The grey rabbit like digimon subdued the four humans and three digimon quickly. One was still fighting. Veemon. But three on one was not a fair fight. She needed to even the odds.

She picked a phone that was, thankfully left near by. Unfortunately,, she was unable to send a message because of her inexperience with the 'infernal' and 'unfriendly' input method. She pushed back the urge to throw the device in frustration. She couldn't risk a brute force attack. For one, there where more of them then there are of her, even a summoned elemental or two wouldn't even those odds much. Two, there was a risk of harm to the children, and the digimon. And three, they were innocent digimon. She needed something that would give her rapid dominance over the field.

Yeah, the reconfigured spire would do it. But it needed to use the new configuration.

* * *

It wasn't took long before Marcus heard the elevator ding and open, letting out two brown haired google wearing boys. The older one, wore a green blazer, a school uniform he thought. The other, wore something more casual.

"Tai. Takuya." Blake greeted.

"Something smells good." The darker Agumon commented.

"Sure does." Marcus backed up as the older boy handed Agumon a paper bag.

"Dig in then. I'm Tai by the way." He offered his hand to Marcus.

"Marcus Damon." Marcus accepted greatly. "Nice to meet you both."

"Same here. I'm Takuya." The younger one introduced.

"Tai. Aren't you going to let me out?" Marcus heard, coming from Tai's pocket. The boy in question produced his digi-vice from his pocket and let Agumon out. "Thanks Tai. Something smells good."

Marcus was surprised to find another Agumon appearing out of nowhere as Tai sat down and handed him a burger from the other paper bag he had.

"Where…" Marcus asked.

"The digital world." Blake answered.

"They're called Digimon. Digital monsters." Takuya explained.

"They come from this world created from the communication systems of this world until… well… we don't know what happened." Tai took over. "It just sort of separated and became it's own world, still connected to ours. They can enter our world and we can enter theirs. And there are times when it needs a group of humans to help keep it safe."

"The digidestine." Takuya added. "Some work with digimon partners, others take on digimon forms."

"So there are more of you?" Marcus asked.

"Matt, Koichi, Yolei and Henry should be here soon." Tai explained. "And there are more of us back in Tokyo."

"Anywhere near West Shinjuku?" Marcus asked.

"Henry is." Takuya answered.

"I live there with my mom and sister. My mom wanted to move to Yokohama a few years ago but, something stopped us."

"And yet, you were still in Yokohama at the same time we were to find a stray digimon." Blake said. "And you didn't receive a phone call?"

"No. Just these punks claimed to be ultimate fighters in my regular chatroom." Marcus shrugged. "They challenged me and guess what."

"You won. Or were those fifteen teenage guys just pass out for no apparent reason." Blake bated as the elevator opened again. This time, it was a blond teenager wearing the same uniform as Tai, followed by reptile wearing blue fur. "You didn't start singing did you?" Blake asked the new comer.

"Why?" The blond asked.

"I just making sure a horde of rabid fans didn't run over fifteen poor boys."

"Right. Who…"

"Matt. Meet Marcus." Tai introduced.

"Hey." He turned back to Tai. "You heard from Kari yet?"

"Not yet." Tai answered.

"Then there's the fact that you and the Agumon you just meet were meeting each other's punches." Blake pointed out. "Even a rookie digimon has strength and speed superior to any human. It takes either an augmented or well trained human to match a digimon in battle."

"Meaning?" Marcus asked.

"I don't know yet."

"Do you have a digi-vice?" Matt asked.

"A what?" To answer Marcus' question, Matt showed his digi-vice to him. "No. Never seen one until today."

Matt turned to Blake. "You sure he's a digidestine?"

"I said it was likely." Blake shot back as the elevator opened again.

"Terriormon." They heard someone moan.

"What? Momentai." Out stepped a red faced girl with lavander hair and a bandana, a chinese boy with a dog eared rabbit hanging from his neck, and a black haired boy wearing a blue baseball cap. The girl noticed Marcus right away.

"Hi." She said walking up to him. "I'm Yolei."

"Marcus."

"Hey." The chinese boy nodded. "I'm Henry."

"Koichi." The black haired boy said simply.

"Good. Now we're all here. Let's get down to business." Blake said quickly.

"You said you lived in Tokyo right?" Tai asked. Marcus nodded. "So somehow, we need to get his Agumon on a train without being noticed."

"Or seen by security cameras. If they see him, they'll start looking in Tokyo for him." Yolei put forward.

"Let's not give them that reason just yet." Koichi added.

"Why don't we use Tai's laptop and get Agumon to Tokyo though the digital world?" Takuya put forward.

"Because, Marcus doesn't have a digi-vice, and someone needs to take him back though the digital gate in to Tokyo." Henry rejected. "And even if he did, we all need go back to Tokyo via train to avoid supposition. We all bought return tickets. It would raise flags if we didn't use them."

"What if someone did wait for him there?" Tai asked. "I haven't heard anything from Kari or Izzy yet. I think they might still be in the digital world. If they are, I'll take both Agumon with me into the digital world, have them take Marcus' Agumon to Shinjuku and wait for us to get there."

Matt's phone rang.

"It's TK. I think." Matt said showing them what was on screen, a jumble of numbers and letters.

"No. It's Jamie. The woman couldn't text with a keypad even if her life depended on it." Blake assured him. "And I think she's trying to get some help."

"You sure?" Tai asked.

"Unless you can think of any other reason Matt would receive a text from TK that could only come from an autistic monkey on crack."

"Right. Blake, Takuya, Koichi, Matt, Yolei. We're going to back them up." Tai ordered as he set up the laptop. "Henry, Marcus, wait here. We'll be back soon."

Marcus wasn't going to take orders, but he wasn't in any position to argue. Tai aimed his digi-vice at the computer screen, as did everyone else going with him.

"Digi-Port open!"

* * *

"No matter what you do. I'll never give up." Jamie heard Veemon moan weakly. She looked briefly at the control ring in her hand. She hoped that that her ancestors were watching over her undertaking, and this foolish act will not be her undoing. She pushed the ring around her head…

Even the digimon emperor, and the digidestine coming from Yokohama heard her scream.


	7. In a Deep, Dark, Time Fissure

It wasn't hard for Matt to imagine the smile on his partner's face as he scuffed down the burgers and fries he passed under the table, given they both were staving. He caught up with Tai who was ordering for two digimon and was scarfing down a burger himself. Takuya got there before them both, already ordered and ate. He left with Tai to meet this new Agumon, and because he wanted to talk to him about something. Matt was going to wait for the others to arrive, and give them the full run down.

"Uh... Matt right?"

Matt looked up from his meal to find Koichi standing over the table with his own meal, as if he was about to ask if the seat was free.

"Hey. Take a seat. Just mind Gabumon under the table." Matt told the older twin who placed the tray on the table and took the seat across from him. He noticed how uncomfortable the boy looked. He wanted to ask something but he wasn't sure about how to ask and not offend him. Given how conflicted the boy look, and how shy he seemed to be, Matt would have to be the one to ask first. "What's on your mind?"

At first, Koichi looked hesitant to say, but it seemed like something gave the boy a push. "It's about T.K."

"Yeah? What about him?"

"Ever since Duskmon attacked, he's been… cautious, and the odd look he gives me. Sometimes I can't tell wether he thinks I'm going to lash out at him or disappear into a cloud of smoke." Koichi explained. "Then there's the words Duskmon said to me. 'Doubt is a funny thing. How it can corrupt hope and twist it.' It didn't make sense at first…"

"But you figure he was referring to the crest holder rather then actuarial hope. This is starting to make a lot of sense to me."

"Did something happen?"

"Well, I'm not sure T.K would like it if I told you, but something did happen." Matt crushed his drinking cup as he recalled the event. "It was a long time ago, but T.K still carries the scars from the final battle between us and our first opponent, Devimon. Devimon used the powers of darkness because he thought it would make him invincible, but Angeamon used up all of his own energy to defeat him. Angeamon knew he would be reconfigured afterwards, but he did it anyway to save T.K. T.K was scared because it was the first time Patamon had ever digivolved, and he thought he'd never see him again. None of us knew that much about Digimon back then, so we all thought that we'd seen the last of Patamon. I guess that fear never really left T.K, or the lesson that the importance of life outweighs the power of darkness. I guess T.K has never really gotten over that. After all these years, it still has an effect."

"It's understandable." Koichi nodded knowing all too well the pain of losing someone close.

"And it only gotten worse from there with Etemon, Myotismon and the Dark Masters." Matt added, shuddering at the reminder of being turned into a key chain by Piedmon. "Everyone in our group has something against the powers of darkness. No offence. You seem to be the exception to our perceptions."

"None taken." Koichi assured him. "I still have some guilt after… after Cherubimon used me against my brother as Duskmon."

This surpassed Matt, and Gabumon who nearly chocked on his burger. "You used to be… Is that why he's after you?"

"I really don't know. I thought Duskmon and Loweemon were the same entity, just representing different aspects of darkness." Koichi shock his head in distress. "The other sprits Cherubimon had were animated but from what Loweemon told me, even they need human hosts now."

"I see." Matt nodded, still not entirely understanding the sprit partner concepts. Koichi noticed the blonde's confusion and went back to the original topic.

"I'm just concerned that T.K's prejudice towards darkness might destroy our friendship." Koichi said worriedly.

"Then you should probably talk to him about it." Matt concluded for him.

"I know. I just don't want to accidentally open old scars." Koichi explained as a third person came up and sat their tray on the table.

"What scars?" Yolei asked. Matt put on a reassuring smile to reassure himself more then anyone else.

"Nothing you need to worry about Yolei." Matt assured her. "I need to get to Marine Tower before something bad happens. I trust Tai, and I guess Takuya too, I just have a bad feeling about all this."

"That's okay Matt. I feel the same way." Gabumon assured him. "It's probably the mustard on those burgers."

"Anyway." Matt pointed his digi-vice at his partner and discretely let him get pulled into the device. "If you see Henry and Terriormon, tell them we're meeting at Marine Tower."

"No problem Matt." Yolei smiled as the older digidestine walked off. She turned to the warrior of darkness with concern. "He was joking about the mustard right."

"I think so. Because it feels like something's coming." Koichi answered. "Something evil."

* * *

Stalking wasn't the term Koji was using at the current moment. But the fact was, he didn't like the idea that there was this suck up girl wondering around sicking a fox on any digimon that comes ten miles near her. He was concerned for Koichi, since this was where he and his, until recently, estranged twin meet almost daily since their biological mother worked at the local hospital. He was also concerned about Tommy, Takato, Guilmon, Neemon and probably any other digidestine and their digimon partner who would turn out to be living in Shinjuku like Henry.

And he was worried about the girl, as much as it pained him to say it. If it was anyone else with their version of their lone wolf act, he would have left them to sort it out for themselves. But this was a digidestine, and the digital world was already in fear of one tyrant.

He had to keep his distance. Lobomon was well aware of Renamon's presence, watching over her like a guardian. He began to wonder if Renamon was only trying to please Rika by attacking digimon and getting stronger.

The red haired girl continued to walk though the crowd, like she's the only one there.

"So then I said to him, I said 'One card man and your back to rookie.' Hey! That's really strange. It's her, I mean, It's you isn't it." Koji noticed a group of boys, not much older then him, stop and pay attention to Rika. One was pointing at her, the lead boy with a white and blue shirt.

"You're incompressible."

"Comprehend this. That's the Digimon Queen. I mean it's synchronistically dude." Koji had to wonder if this kid even knew what synchronistically meant.

"Come on. That's a girl man." Rika turned and Koji thought that she would attack them at any moment, but she just gave them her best death stare.

"Yeah. I noticed, and she's kinda cute too. Sorta like Minami with a punk, you know sorta edge."

Growing board of them, Rika turned and walked away, much to Koji's thanks. He continued to follow the red head until they got to a crosswalk. The world around Koji began to fade, he was caught in Rika's daydream.

"Renamon." He heard her voice echo. The fox digimon in question appeared behind her.

"Rika."

"If I'm so good, then why haven't you digivolved?"

"I don't know."

"I think it's your fault. You should try harder."

"What are you trying to say to me Rika."

Rika turned. Koji took a step back, but knew it was futile to hide. There was nothing to hide in or behind.

"It's not my fault, I'm the best Tamer there is."

"So you are. I never said you weren't."

"Well see that you don't. I'm the best, and I won't settle for less then that out of you. Do you understand me."

"Always."

"Then you know I'm not kidding around here."

"I know."

With that, the world faded back into place. Koji shocked his head clear as his senses were suddenly assaulted by the loud noises, bright lights and foul smells of city life. He almost missed Rika mutter something under her breath.

"She will be the best. Like me." She pulled off her headphones when the someone's angered yell didn't fail to get her attention.

"What the hell did you get my brother in to Minamoto!"

* * *

Pain.

Okay. She knew pain was a good start. She hasn't died. Not yet at least. Though she was cold, her head was throbbing, and she couldn't see a thing. She then released that her eyes were still closed. She opened them, only to be meet with black. This wasn't just darkness… darkness was natural. Passive and timid, parting the way for light. This was aggressive, all consuming, as if nothing else existed.

No. Something else did exist. Something right here with her.

"Who is there?!" She called out into the black. "Answer me!"

The only response she got was a distant chuckle.

* * *

"Nice place." The darker Agumon said, looking around the riverside where four humans, four digimon and two hybrids ended up. "Sky needs a little work."

"You've never been here?" Gabumon asked. "But you're a digimon. All digimon were born in the digital world."

"He said he was born in the institution." the lighter Agumon answered for his counterpart.

"And begs the question how did a bunch of humans get their grubby hands on a digimon egg." Blake huffed looking up into the sky. "And only the second most interesting question to be asked today. The first in three, two…"

"Did you two digi-volve as we went though the gate?" Matt asked the two hybrids.

"Wrong ques…" Blake turned to find that Takuya and Koichi weren't in their human forms anymore. "Did not see that coming."

In response, Takuya checked his hands, finding them in gauntlets. "I'll say. I didn't even notice." He added, noticing that his voice deepened from Agunimon's form. "Koichi?"

"Does anyone else feel that?" The warrior of darkness asked. Koichi was looking up towards the darkening sky as it rumbled with thunder and flashed with lightning.

"Good thing JP isn't here. He hates thunderstorms." Takuya noted.

"Isn't he the warrior of thunder?" Tai asked.

"Which is why he isn't afraid of it anymore. But it's weird."

"What is?" Yolei asked.

"It doesn't feel like an actuarial storm." Hawkmon answered for her partner.

"But it looks like a storm." Tai pointed out.

"They're right Tai. That storm shouldn't be here." His partner pointed out.

"Only one expiration fits what we're looking at here. I sense mayhem about." Blake noted before they heard something… a moan.

"That sounded like…" Takuya began, looking towards the river. "Cody?!"

He didn't need to say anything more, everyone was running towards the river, finding said boy passed out by the water. Next to him was the bruised and worn for mom of a small white digimon, assumably Armadillomon's in-training form. Koichi knelled down, checked the boy's pulse. It was obvious that he was cold, and his breathing was fast and shallow.

"Is he okay?" The darker Agumon asked.

"He'll be fine once he wakes up." Gabumon assured him. "Let's get them some water. Both of them will need it."

"He's in shock!" Koichi announced.

"Med kit from my bag." Blake pointed out throwing the pack to Yolei. "Look for the red crescent on a titanium case. You all noticed that right?"

"Apart from the eight year old who looks like he's at death's door, not much." Takuya pointed out. Once Yolei got the kit out of the bag, Takuya took it and used it to elevate Davis' legs.

"He's nine. And I meant Koichi feeling for a pulse though gauntlets, and you knowing basic first aid. There's a big blue blanket in the back pocket." He pointed out before finding something on the young boy's shoulder. Something beried half under the flesh but still partially exposed. "Hold up. This doesn't seem like garden verity shock to me. Help me roll him over."

Matt complied, only to wish he hadn't. Sticking out from under Cody's shirt was an all too gory sight. But that wasn't what made him ill. It was what was berried in the boy's shoulder that made him want to throw up. A black gear…

"Stars above." Was all Blake could say, already running though possible ways to stop the bleeding and replace the blood already lost.

"What is that thing?" Yolei asked, not expecting an answer.

He grabbed his digi-vice from his pocket, aimed it at the boy's shoulder. Both Yolei and Blake watched in awe as the device lit up and the gear was pushed out from the young boy's body and shattered, the only proof that the gear was ever there was the dry blood, and a long thin scar down the boy's shoulder where the gear was, like it was inflicted years ago. Cody began to breathe easier, his breaths no longer as shallow. Colour and warmth was already returning to his skin.

"Makes sense you've seen those things before." Blake noted.

"What does that mean?" Matt challenged. Did he really think they were responsible for those things?

"Look around you. Does anything about this place seem right to you? The storm? The gear? Which by the way is another question entirely. But right now, we're standing in the middle of a time fissure. Two points in history that should never have connected pressed together with the past leaking into the present." Blake looked at the two older digidestine with concern. "Who or what else might be here?"

Koichi had an answer already in his mind, but before he could voice it, someone else spoke up.

"The river's frozen over!"

"Tai! You've got to see this!"

Matt and Tai turned to see their partners standing over the river's edge, which was, as Gabumon pointed out, frozen solid.

"Stay with Cody you two." Tai instructed Yolei and Hawkmon as everyone else got up to inspect the frozen water. "This is a little too weird. It's practically warm out. Why would this river freeze right though."

"It's a side effect of the time fissure. The general laws of physics in the area have been altered. If we don't close it soon, there might not be much left of the area." He produced his smartphone and pointed it up river. "Hope you guys don't mind walking."

"It's part of the job description." Tai pointed out. "Fighting evil digimon and walking long distances."

"What Joe wouldn't give for a working bus stop." Matt added.

"I'm guessing you guys didn't have Trailmon when you had to save the digital world." Takuya conceded. "At least you didn't need to lose your lunch every third trip."

"At least Mimi wouldn't whine about walking everywhere."

"Just don't throw up in her hat."

"Hey! I was eight!"

* * *

Gatomon in the meantime kept scratching at the ice in a feeble attempt of getting to her partner under a thick layer of ice.

"Did not!" She heard someone shout.

"Actuarially Tai, you did look kinda panicked after you woke up."

"Agumon!"

"In his defence, a pink head with long ears would make any human, on that particular earth think they're hallucinating. Or drunk. I actuarially remember this great brew of sake I picked up in 1459. Good year for throwing stars."

Down river, walking down the frozen waterway, Gatomon could easily make out five taller figures, accompanied by three stout ones. As they got closer, one of the taller figures looked more familiar. It wasn't until the bushy brown hair and the googles came into her vision did she recognise who it was.

"Tai! Agumon!" She dashed towards the group without a second thought, forgetting what she was running on. Her attempt to stop before running into anyone, failed with her running into her partner's brother.

"Gatomon?" Tai was able utter. "Wh…"

"She's trapped in the ice! I can't get her out!" The white digital cat yelled in a panic before running back up the river.

"Who?!" Tai called out as he followed, trying to both run and stay up right on the ice at the same time. Everyone wearing shoes had some trouble, Matt most of all but Blake wasn't having as much.

It wasn't long until Takuya saw her, moments before anyone else did. When he did, he launched himself into the air and with a Pyro Tornado Attack, surprising everyone when his round house kick hit the frozen ground. Their attention was turned to the girl frozen under the ice.

"Kari!" Tai yelled.

"How did she get under there?" Koichi asked.

"Who cares? We need to get her out."

"Out the way Tai!" his partner ordered, flames filling his jaw. Tai was quick to move out of the way as an orange ball of flames was let lose and hit the ice.

"Need more fire power." Tai noted as he produced the orange and blue digi-vice from his jacket pocket as Matt took the blue and silver digi-vice from his. Both teenagers summoned the fractal codes around their hands and scanned them with the devices. Both partner digimon were encased in fractal code, skin stripped, and shape reformed. Blake saw the familiar sight of Greymon standing where the small orange reptile used to stand, but saw an unfamiliar digimon replace Gabumon, a large ferrous wolf with blue and white fur, similar to what the rookie was wearing. Garurumon.

"Care to help Agumon?" Blake asked the remaining rookie as he aimed an open palm at the girl.

"With what?" Agumon asked. "I can't see anyone under there." Blake looked at the confused Agumon then to the digimon powering up their attacks.

"Nova bla…"

"Howling blas…"

"Pyro tor…"

"Shadow me…"

"Stop!" They heard Blake yell. "She's not actuarially down there."

"You're kidding right." Koichi said unconvinced.

"Can't you see anyone down there?" Tai yelled at the the boy. "We have to get he out."

"Who?" The remaining Agumon asked. "I can't anything down there."

"Maybe your not looking hard enough." Gatomon suggested.

"Then there's the matter of her outfit." Blake added. "Correct me if I'm wrong but she has a stopwatch around her neck right."

"No! A whistle!" Tai corrected.

"But she gave her whistle to me when she left the digital world the first time." Gatomon corrected. "She's wearing that camera. You know, the one your parents got her last christmas."

"She right. But at least she's wearing a jacket." Garurumon added.

"She's not wearing a jacket." Greymon pointed out.

"I was wondering why I could see she wearing a sleeveless top and a pair of purple shorts." Takuya noted.

"It's an illusion, designed to waste our time and energy." Koichi noted. "Agumon hadn't meet Kari so the illusion doesn't affect him."

"Mind doesn't know what to fill the void with so it leaves it blank." Blake explained. "Not a bad method if your trying to fool someone who knows the target well. More then one, you'll get mixed reactions."

"If she's not here. Then where is she?" Gatomon asked, the question that was on everyone, or at least Takuya's, Tai's and Greymon's mind. She then recalled something. "Can we do what Jamie did but in reverse."

"Pardon?" Tai asked.

"She did this…" It was hard for Gatomon to explain. "She drew this symbol on the back of Kari's hand since she didn't have a digi-vice. Yolei said it looked like the greek letter for omega."

"If she used a call-recall teleportation spell then I doubt it. The recall rune needs to be recharged and it can only bring someone too the rune." Blake explained.

"We better keep moving." Koichi suggested.

"No arguments there." Matt agreed, knowing all too well that an old enemy was waiting for them. And he wouldn't be alone.

* * *

Kari moaned. She wasn't sure what happened. She tried to recall what happened before. The Gazimon swarming them, Veemon standing up to their leader, the control spire beginning to glow… and Jamie screaming before she blacked out. She recalled Gatomon telling her…

"Gatomon!" She called out now realising that her partner Digimon wasn't with her. She got to her feet and found herself in the middle of the village square. She could see a figure up ahead. "Is that you Gatomon?"

"I am pledged to obey your command, Devimon." The figure began to turn towards Kari. She recognised the figure. Leomon, but there was something very wrong. His fur was darker, and his eyes…

"I've been commanded by my master to take the digi-destine."

Kari's heart didn't miss a beat.

A flash of blue light from behind her blinded the corrupted Leomon long enough for her to run.

* * *

"Patamon! No!"

TK jerked upwards from his sleep, lying in a bed, sitting on a stairway. What was weird was the set of googles hanging from the banister. They kinda reminded him of Tai's. His thoughts turned elsewhere when he wondered where Patamon was. Last he remembered, he was talking to Kari, calming down after the fight he had with Davis over his sister. Then the Gazimon came in and restrained everyone they could, but Veemon was up against only two of them. He was getting his ass handed to him. Then the scream…

"Patamon!" TK called out. "Patamon!"

"Lose something?" TK froze when he heard the voice. "Death Claw!"

The blonde jumped out of the way before the hand hit the ground, grabbing concrete. TK rolled down the stairs towards the ground. He came to rest, battered, bruised and still breathing. He wasted no time in getting to his feet and running for cover.

He couldn't believe it. Devimon. What was he doing here?

His question was interrupted by a bight blue flash. Devimon screamed in pain from the light, and TK saw it as a chance to put as much distance between himself and his nightmare.

* * *

Davis felt his head throb and teeth chatter as he opened his eyes. As much as he wanted to stay in bed, the cold was getting to him. When he opened his eyes, he figured out why it was so cold and meet by a vision of white. Everything on the mountainside was covered in a blanket of snow.

"Great." He muttered as he shivered, not noticing that his voice echoed. "I hate the cold. Veemon?" He noticed that his partner wasn't there. Last he remembered, he was being slammed into the control spire. He tried to recall the event, the Gazimon rushing him, the blue reptile hitting the spire, hard. Jamie screaming and…

Davis' thoughts were interrupted by someone talking. It sounded like…

"Hello?" Davis called out. "Veemon? Kari? Cody? Jamie? TJ?"

"Davis!" He heard TK's voice. Davis sighed in relief, turning to face the blonde, only to find that he wasn't there. "She didn't mention any of that!" The voice continued enraged. "Your sister didn't mention anything bad about you. In fact, she didn't even mention you at all. You're the one with the big mouth!"

"If you've got a problem with me, why don't we settle it right now!" Then came his own voice from behind him. He turned out of shock rather then a need to know who was behind him.

"Seriously. I think she's sweet on you." Then came Blake's voice. He came walking from behind the control spire, Gatomon in his arms with Takuya's digimon from following, carrying the sleeping figure of Kari Kamiya in his red and black arms. They were walking towards Davis.

"What makes you say that?" Takuya asked.

"Lets just say I've been in that place once before." Blake explained as Davis ran up to them.

"Blake! Takuya!" Davis called out. "What happened to…" He stopped he reached them, but they kept going… and passed right though Davis, like they were ghosts.

"It's the same story every time and it begins with those same two words." Blake finished as they began to walk down the mountainside.

"You slipped Gatomon's tail ring in my pocket didn't you." Takuya accused.

"I don't know what your talking about." Blake defected. Davis tried to follow but when they made a sharp turn, they vanished. He felt something wet on the back of his neck. When he turned, he found… bubbles? Caught in the reflection of one of them was… the Digimon Emperor! Before he could try to make sense of those thoughts, something jumped out of the snow at him, and almost ran into him.

A girl.

"Woah!' She yelled, stopping before they collided. Davis could tell one thing about her immediately. She wasn't human. And he wasn't so sure that she was a digimon either. Call it instinct. She had the shape of a human girl, wasn't bad looking either. But her skin was a lustrous gold, like she was spray painted with the valuable shiny metal, her hair as white as the snow, and her eyes, gold like a cat's pupils dilated into circles but it wouldn't be hard for Davis to imagine them a diamond shape. However, she wore a silver windbreaker jacket, a pair of navy blue skinny jeans and Doc Martians. She had a satchel over he shoulder, and a pair of googles she pulled down to her neck to get a better look at the boy she nearly ran into. "Star's above! What on Terra are doing just standing there like your waiting for Claw's latest album? We're in the middle of a tacyonic fallout. We've got to get out of here before elementals show up."

"Elemen…" Davis could answer, he was pushed out of the way by the girl. An icicle missed his head by micrometers, impaling the ground instead. Davis heard the ele-whatsit come closer, an imposing figure made of ice. The girl grabbed his arm, pull him to his feet and run pass the elemental, dragging him down the mountainside. She threw something, pulling it out of her bag and throwing it at the thing. Davis noticed the pin fall to the ground just, and knew what it was…

The explosion that followed rocked the area.

* * *

"What was that?" Matt asked, pointing up to the top of the mountain, over the village that Garurumon led them to. A large blue flash on the white capped peak were the control spire stood.

"That can't be good." Koichi noted.

"It looks like some sort of fusion explosion. Endothermic too. Your basically looking at fire so cold, it burns." Blake explained. "And turns organic material hard and brittle."

"Freezing fire?" Greymon asked, sceptical.

"I guess anything's possible." Tai shrugged.

"But why here?" Gatomon asked the million dollar question.

"I can count the number of people capable of making that explosion on my fingers and toes. Top of the list. Her." Blake answered as everyone began to run towards the entrance. "Let's split up. We stand a better chance of finding everyone sooner that way."

"Right. Koichi, Blake, Agumon, you guys come with me and Greymon." Tai ordered. "Takuya, Gatomon, Matt, Garurumon…"

"We got it." Garurumon interrupted. "All roads converge on the mountainside. We'll meet up at the path towards the peak."

"Roger."

Tai, Koichi and Blake turned left while Takuya and Matt veered right. And with each turn, the ranks began to thin. Takuya took a near by stairway when Gatomon though she heard Kari, leaving Matt and Garaurumon by themselves. Blake and Agumon were first of Tai's group to split off after spotting something disappear down an ally. Koichi thought he heard something when he passed a turn, leaving Tai and Greymon.

* * *

TK came to a stop when he was confident enough that he had ran far enough, but for added measure, he his behind a stall of some sort. Peaking over it, he was willing to deem himself safe. Devimon. Of all the digimon out there, why him? TK thought to himself.

"Why not me TK?" Devimon asked. The voice came from right beside him as Devimon grabbed the blonde haired boy and lifted him up. "Human children. So fragile." He placed a claw over TK's neck and was about to push when someone interrupted, bashing Devimon in the back of his head, dropping TK. The boy looked up to see a sight that he remembered so often. Angemon. But there was something wrong.

"There you are pretty boy." Devimon turned his attention to the Angel digimon. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Did the Goblinmon give you trouble? Death Hand!"

* * *

It wasn't what anyone expected to see in the digital world and yet, Matt found one. There were three things wrong with the picture. The first was an adult male lying in the middle of a digimon village. The second with how much like Marcus Damon he looked like. The third was the fact that he didn't have a pulse. It was the bullet wound that told him he was dead.

"Matt?" Garurumon asked. Both were saddened by anyone's death, but in the digital world, they were the digi-destine, they were suppose to keep the peace in this world. A human death… how did he even end up here anyway.

The man had something in his hands, holding on to it when he died. It was a camera of some sort, and it looked fried. Never the less, something on that camera was either worth dying for, or worth holding on too. It wasn't hard to remove from the dead man's grip. He figured at worse, he could figure out what was on the camera.

* * *

In reality, Blake wasn't quite sure of what he was chasing, but he knew it was important to an extent, and it was shiny. Mostly because it was shiny. Okay, he was probably chasing it solely because it was shiny. He wondered if it was a quark he picked up form a few centuries of dimension jumping.

He turned a corner and found himself face to face with a large purple digimon. But he could see though the illusion. Not that there was any need to.

"I was expecting something like this. Lord Cherubimon."

"So, you're the human boy Ophanimon thought would help." The illusion Cherubimon said. "You don't look like much."

"Call me human again and I'll show you looks can be deceiving." Blake threatened. The illusion was taken aback by the aggressive tone, and by the words used. 'Call me human again…'

"You resent your humanity?"

"Just being human. I've had the misfortune of being born into a species with a history of aggressive behaviour, and exploiting other species, and their own just for having a different colour skin." Blake explained, uncomfortable with the idea that he was explaining himself to the messenger. "But Cherubimon sent you here with a message. And I'm in a hurry."

"Very well. He wanted you to know that something has corrupted the other warriors."

"And Duskmon?"

"What?! That's impossible!"

"Tell Koichi that."

"If he's here then it's worse then I thought."

"Oh yeah. Who'd have the power to do something like that?"

"I have my suspicions. Meanwhile, since you found your way to Seraphimon and Ophanimon Reborn, you need to find Cherubimon Reborn."

"Come again?"

"The celestial digimon. You found them. I sense them close by." The Cherubimon illusion's eyes widened. "You didn't realise?"

"This is the first I've heard about any orders other then getting Bokomon and Neemon to the Legendary Warriors. I'm guessing my job wasn't done yet. You guys are lucky this emperor boy is running a muck in the digital world or I would be on the battlefields of Beijing right now."

"You want gratitude?"

"I'm only remarking on the irony of the situation. Is that all because…"

"No. Ophanimon wanted to remind you that the crests were originally forged from digi-metals by the powers of the warrior beasts themselves. They are also the only things the beast sprits can be held by. Once the warrior and beast are tamed, the crests can be forged."

"Okay. But what are beast sprits?"

"They're the…"

Before the illusion could answer, he flickered and dissolved into data.

"Great. That's what you get for not paying your long distance phone bill." Blake huffed before walking along. "How much does a sentient hologram to the future cost per minute anyway?"

* * *

It took Davis a while to catch his breath and for his limbs to stop shaking, but other then that, he was fine. The girl had dragged him down off the mountain and stop for him to take a breather, now she was tapping wildly at her tablet computer.

"You good?" She asked. Davis nodded. "Clair by the way. Professor Clair Weli'sol."

"Davis. Professor?" Davis questioned the girl. She couldn't be much older then his sister.

"Yeah. Chemistry, Physics, Biology… but for sanity sakes, Clair will do fine."

"Are you an alien?"

"Something like that. I don't think it will matter much if we don't do something about this Time Fissure."

"And that thing?"

"Ice Elemental. Feeds off heat. That's why it's an ice elemental."

"Then why does it need to feed off heat?"

"The same reason why carbon based life forms eat." She looked up from her tablet to address Davis directly. "Every living thing needs energy to live. But with that analogy, it's possible to put machines in that category." She returned her eyes to the tablet when it began to beep. "Right. Arcane signature matches… Oh."

"What?" Davis asked.

"You wouldn't happen to know a Jamie Sw'et?" Clair asked looking very worried. Davis didn't even get a chance to answer before she spoke again. "Depts of the void help us. "

* * *

For the first time in a long while, Kari was alone and afraid. Hiding in one of the empty houses, she kept breathing steady. She tried to keep optimistic. She tried to be brave. And all the while, she kept hoping that someone would find her. He brother. Her friends. Her partner. Her knight in shining armour.

A sword periced the wall she was hiding behind. She screamed when she saw the shining blade pass though the stonework backing away from it. Leomon crashed though it, raised the sword and…

"Pyro Tornato!"

It was like a battle cry that Kari prayed for. It came with a crash and the heat of Agunimon's flaming round house kick. She looked up to see Leomon flown across the room and into a wall and her saviour, almost frozen in that position.

"Kari!" Gatomon ran though the hole that Takuya left in the wall and hugged her partner, glad she was safe.

"Are you okay?" Takuya asked, knelling down.

"Any later and I wouldn't be." Kari huffed, returning Gatomon's hug.

"Fist of the beast king!" Takuya turned back just in time to shield Kari and Gatomon from the lion shaped aura. He watched as the king of beasts stood battle ready. Takuya wasn't going to let him near Kari.

"My turn. Pyro Punch!" His fist meet his target, surrounded by flames of determination. And the next, and the next. Leomon stumbled back and pulled a sword, about to rush the warrior of flame.

All that happened was Takuya caught it between his palms and pulled it from his opponent's hands, sending it across the room. With one punch, Leomon roared in pain. Takuya knew there wasn't any fight left, but something strange happened. Instead of the fractal code appearing, and the digimon reverting into his digi-egg form, he just flickered and faded out.

Takuya thought it was weird and made a note to mention it later. For now, his attention turned to Kari and Gatomon. He walked over to them, and offered a hand for the chosen of light.

Kari took the gantleted hand, hoping the contact with fire wouldn't burn her. It surprised her to find the metal still warm but not burning hot. She looked into the warrior's bright blue eyes and remembered what she prayed for.

A knight in shining armour. She couldn't help but smile when she remembered that as she was helped to her feet. She was still unsteady and tired but she was upright. When she let go, she was uneasy and used Takuya's shoulder for support.

"Thanks." Kari said to her warrior.

"Don't mention it."

* * *

It was a fight that mirrored TK's nightmares. Angemon started off strong, his 'Hand of Fate' proving to be a strong advantage but soon, Angemon was taking punches. One fist hit a mark, and Angemon was on the ground, Devimon standing over him. He picked up the digital angel and held him out as far as one arm could, his other hand open and aimed at Angemon's chest.

"Angemon! You can't give up!" TK yelled.

"Time to finish this." Devimon announced. "Death h…"

"Shadow Lance!"

The spear of conviction slammed into Devimon's fist, forcing him to release the angel digimon who collapsed on the ground unceremoniously. Angemon looked up to see the digimon that intervened with his demise. A humanoid shape stood stedfast in the wind, coated in armour with lions heads as the main theme. Champion of true, untainted, unbiased darkness. Loweemon.

But both of them knew this warrior by a different name.

"Koichi?" TK said unsure of what he was seeing. The lion warrior turned to the blond, red eyes meeting the boy's baby blues. The powers of darkness were always the constant enemy in his life and now, his best friend, welding the powers he hated so much stood between Angemon and Devimon.

Koichi turned back to his enemy, who was just smiling. "What kind of self respecting creature of darkness comes to the aide of an angel?"

"The kind you'll never understand Devimon."

"Do I know you?"

"No. But I know you." Loweemon said. "You caused my friend unending pain. You dwell in his nightmares. You prey on his fears. You fuel his hate and warp his view of the world. You won't cause my friends anymore pain." He rushed at Devimon with his spear. Devimon tried to deflect the spear but it came too fast, and hit him hard.

TK watched as the two fought it out, but not really paying attention, only going over the events that just occurred, and that facts that he had already learnt. Darkness and Light, both complete opposites, but if they were natural enemies, what did that make Koichi?

He shock his head. Koichi isn't the enemy. He had to be the exception.

"Death Hand!" A bolt of dark energy shot at Loweemon, trying to take the warrior out, only he got out of the way, jumping back and powering up his own attack.

"Shadow meteor." Darkness gathered in the central lion head's mouth, only to be shot as golden light at the fallen angel digimon. Devimon felt the attack burn like fire… The true powers of darkness.

"Death Claw!" Devimon came at Loweemon, his claws managing to piece the joints in his armour. Koichi screamed in pain.

"Koichi!" TK yelled as Koichi twisted towards TK, raised his spear… and with one enrage cry, turned the spear held arm at Devimon's wrist and jabbed at it. Devimon's claw recoiled in pain as Koichi fell to the ground, his convictions obviously more powerful then Devimon's will.

"Enough of this!" Devimon shouted. "Death…"

"Hand of Fate!" A beam of energy went though Devimon's chest. The fallen angel flickered and faded out. Angemon then de-digivolved into a worn out Patamon. Koichi got to his feet, walked over to the rookie digimon, picked him up and walked over to TK.

He in turn took the passed out digimon into his arms who then moaned with "Did I get him TK?"

"You sure did Patamon." TK assured him before looking up at the warrior of darkness.

For the first time since this revelation, he smiled. An honest smile that Koichi hadn't seen in what felt like forever. Even if he still felt that the powers of darkness were the source of all his problems, at the end of the day, Koichi was still his friend, and in his hands, the powers of darkness were used for the right reasons. Too bad it took Devimon for him to realise that.

* * *

"This is bad. This is bad. This is bad. This is bad." Clair repeated. It wasn't hard for Davis to tell that her confident and stalwart demeanour was cracking as the two moved though the village. "What else could go wrong today?"

They heard a crash.

"Greymon!"

"Sorry."

"Tai!" Davis called out. There he was, the boy he looked up to. His mentor. His friend. Tai Kamiya. "Hey! Over here!"

"You know them?" Clair asked.

"Davis!" Came Tai's voice, a relief to Davis since he wasn't sure if he was real or not."

"Yes you do." Clair answered as the bushy haired boy and the large orange dinosaur came closer. A smile appeared on the girl's face.

"Davis! Have you seen Kari?" Tai asked right off the bat before noticing the alien girl. "And who and what is that?"

"Stars above. You are magnificent." Clair said to Greymon walking up to champion level digimon.

"Uh. Thanks." Greymon said. The girl was taken aback by his ability to talk.

"Stars above! It talks!" She said almost a panic before regaining her composure. "Where are my manners? Sorry. Professor Clair Weli'sol. And I take no offence if you can't remember it. And you would be?"

"I'm Greymon."

"Greymon? Curious name." She walked around the dinosaur. "You appear closely related to the Ceratosaurus from the looks of your hardened cranial skin and horns. Stop me if you begin to feel uncomfortable." She continued to circle around, stepping over his tail with care. "The 'Horned lizard' isn't an intelligent creature back on Prehistoric Terra, and your colours are… odd to say the least. And your eyes. They do have that spark of intelligence. Not to mention your personality classes with your appearance." She stopped, and looked at the older google head. "And you must be Tai. Soccer player, striker I would imagine."

"Yeah. I guess Davis talked about me."

"Hardly a word." She admitted.

"Tai." Greymon said suddenly. "We need to go."

"Go?" She turned to Greymon then back to Tai. "Go where? We're in the middle of a Time Fissure. It needs to be fixed before something… well… something very… not so nice happens."

"You know about Time Fissures?" Tai asked.

"Yes. Do you?" Clair asked in turned.

"He's right. We need to go." Tai said leading the girl, dinosaur and boy towards the meeting place. Davis moaned.

"Now my head hurts. Can someone please explain to me what's going on!"

* * *

He could now well and truly say the camera was broken. After several attempts at getting the preview working on a crack screen and possibly flat battery, Matt was ready to give up. The only reason he didn't throw the camera away was because the data might still have survived what ever trauma the camera had suffered. He sighed and leaned back onto Garurumon who was lying behind him, both of them waiting for their friends to arrive.

"Matt!" He heard Blake call out as he climbed the stairs and got to the teenage rockstar.

"Didn't find anyone?" Matt asked glumly.

"I found someone, but he couldn't stick around." Blake answered as Agumon caught up to the human. He then stopped to catch his breath.

"I didn't know humans could run so fast." Agumon huffed.

"By the way, you wouldn't happen to know how much does a sentient hologram to the future cost per minute?" Blake asked Matt while Agumon took shallow breaths.

"Uh…" Matt was caught off guard until he heard someone call out. And to his relief…

"Matt!" It was his little brother. He couldn't get to his feet fast enough, going into overprotective big brother mode.

"Are you okay?" He asked running to his brother. He could clearly see some bruises forming on his brother's skin, and Patamon was limp in his arms.

"Well, if it wasn't for Koichi, I would be subject to what ever Devimon had for me." TK explained. Matt looked up to the warrior of darkness, both relieved and grateful. He was about to express it when another voice interrupted him.

"I mean, all of this is data, represented as matter and energy. It's a fantastic research opportunity if we live long enough to actuarially study it." A girl's voice, but it's owner wasn't human. Blake on the other hand found the gold skinned alien girl very familiar.

"I knew that explosion could only be your handy work Clair Weli'sol." Blake scolded the girl.

"And only you would know." The girl, Clair returned before she leaned into Agumon. Blake turned to Tai , Greymon and Davis who were with her.

"Sorry about her, she gets all excited about new discoveries." Blake told them. "She talked my ear off once about how a tropical fungi could be used to treat the Terran Flu."

"Wait. She was still taking?" Davis asked surprised. Tai just laughed.

"It's okay. At least she dumbed it down for those who couldn't understand big words." Tai assured him. "Hang around Izzy for a while, you learn a few big words anyway. I think they might just get along."

"What was your first clue?" Matt asked.

"Oh. I know." Clair said excitedly, turning away from Agumon. "Love of natural sciences." Blake leaned into Matt's ear and whispered something. It made him moan.

"No one's found Kari yet?" Tai asked.

"I have." Blake answered as he pointed down a walk way where Takuya and Kari were walking up, Gatomon was standing on one of the warrior of flame's shoulders while Kari was being help towards the others. The flash of pain on her face told Tai that something must have happened to her sister.

"Tai!" She called out as her brother ran up to her.

"What happened?" Tai demanded.

"She twisted her ankle while she was running from a corrupted Leomon." Gatomon explained for her. "But something strange happened when Takuya defeated it."

"It just sorta faded out." Takuya described. "Like it wasn't even there."

"Then it was probably an echo of the real thing." Blake explained.

"You sure you're okay?" Tai pressed again.

"Thanks to Takuya." Kari answered.

"Then all we're missing is Jamie and Veemon." Matt informed them.

"She'll be easy to find." Clair nodded up to the mountain and the control spire on the peak.

"Then we better get going." Takuya said, and everyone groaned inwardly, but said nothing.

* * *

"Great. The weatherman was wrong about there being no snow." Davis complained, shivering. Everyone else put up with it, other then Takuya and Kari who had the benefit of Takuya's element, Garurumon who had a warm fur coat and Gatomon who had the combination of both.

Clair held her computer up to the spire, noting the readings. She pointed to it. "The source of our problems. Some sort of dimension ripple effect suddenly taken a turn for the worse."

"Hey look." Agumon pointed to a mound in the snow. "They look like snowmen." The orange digimon ran up to the figures, and tripped over something, running into the figure of snow… only to find, it wasn't completely made of snow. His claw rubbed off some snow and under it was a Gazimon, frozen in place.

Kari gasped at the sight. Everyone was horrified. Did they freeze to death? Clair on the other hand walked up to the figure and looked it in the eyes.

"They're fine." She said simply. "They're not dead. Just frozen… in time." She added to elaborate, given how cold it was.

"Anything to do with the dimension ripple?" TK asked.

"Everything actuarially." She answered, looking at the Gazimon's collars. "These things are the cause, connected to the spire some how.

"Veemon!" Davis yelled in horror. Everyone gathered around the blue reptile, frozen in mid air as he was hist against the spire, as it cracked.

"And we have our cause." Clair noted. "The diminutional fissure is cause by this spire braking and the arcane energy leaking into the physical space."

"Then how do we fix it?" Davis demanded, not wanting to leave his partner like this any longer.

"Blake's area of expertise." She pointed out as Blake kneeled by Veemon.

"Well?" Davis said. Blake smiled. The kind of smile that told a mother that her child was up to no good. He made a gesture with the index fingers of both hands, roaring them in an anti-clockwise motion. As he did, Veemon was push forwards and the spire built itself, cracks disappearing. There was a purple flash, and the snow vanished, and everyone's ears were filled with screaming.

When everything went into play, a Gazimon began to rush at Veemon, but he was intercepted by Koichi who was now just there.

All the Gazimon was now confused by how their hostages suddenly vanished, and now there were four champion digimon standing over them. And now the control spire in the area was now glowing a bright white as it was being reconfigured. It stopped glowing as Jamie's screams went from crescendo to al niente. The spire was left a marble white as the aura of foreboding and domination lifted completely and the collars around the Gazimon's necks shattered and broke off.

All of them, now released from their dark rings, were in some state of confusion. One dark ring remained however, on the head of a sun elf who began to wake from a very disturbing dream.

* * *

Yolei was almost blinded by a flash of light. Her vision was taking a while to clear but as it did, she noticed voices of the confused Gazimon around her, and the shape of a large marble spire towering over her, a beacon of hope and liberty.

"Yolei!" She jumped at Cody's voice next to her. "Are you okay Yolei?"

"I found her glasses!" Came Armadillomon's voice.

"Pass them here." Hawkmon ordered. Yolei's vision suddenly cleared, when her glasses were stuck loftily on her nose. She saw Cody standing over her, offering a hand.

"Thanks guys." Yolei said to him and the two digimon, while asking herself how Cody recovered quickly.

"Come on. The others are waiting." Cody reminded them as he helped Yolei to her feet.

On the other side of the spire, Yolei found a strange soccer game going on where Tai and Davis were trying to kick the ball past Koichi in his digimon form, while he and Takuya were trying to get it past Davis. TK and Kari watched the game unfold from the sidelines with both Agumon, Gabumon, Veemon, and Gatomon. Patamon was dosing in TK's arms.

And there was a strange alien woman, talking to someone on a tablet. Izzy by the sounds of it. They were having a very animated discussion.

"Kanabra shoots." Takuya kicked the ball towards Davis who dived at the ball… and missed. "He scores!"

"Aww man. No fair." Davis companied.

"And that's why no one's keeping score." Takuya reminded him much to the chuckles of Tai and Koichi. The girl looked away from her tablet and walked over to the game.

"I'm done here." She told Tai. "Your friend Izzy thinks that the spire has been reversed and now repels dark rings. Basically, it protects the area. It won't be hard to redo the process, but…" She noticed Yolei. "Hello there."

"Hi." Yolei managed to say as the girl walked up to her. She then did something she didn't expect.

Offer a hand.

"Clair Weli'sol."

"Yolei. It's nice to meet you… I think." Yolei replied unsure what to think. "One of Blake's friends?" She asked Tai.

"Oh yeah." Tai informed her as 'Clair' returned to her call. "Izzy will love her."

"I can tell. What's going on?" Yolei asked.

"Just passing time. Matt wanted to talk to Blake alone. Something about being out of our depth." Tai answered as he watched Matt and Blake run up to and pass the two and start calling out to Clair in a tongue that only seemed seemed to understand. There was an exchange between them, Clair showing shock while Blake remained composed.

Then Clair asked a question in Japanese. "Any particular reason you don't want them to know there's been a possible murder of a human?"

Silence fell over the entire area as digimon and digidestine alike processed what they just heard. Even Izzy stopped with his stream of questioning.

"I'll find Koraian and have him run a preliminary autopsy scan." Clair said walking further up the mountain, hanging up on Izzy. "Just make sure Jamie is okay please." She left Blake with some very uncomfortable people, and some uncomfortable questions.


End file.
